Ball X Pit Review

Despite growing up with the Game Boy, I've probably logged more hours on it in the last few years, thanks largely to the Analogue Pocket (and the advent of rechargeable USB batteries). I do still have the original Game Boy, but AA batteries are not cheap! Anyway, my favorite game on the Game Boy has always been Alleyway (I only recently finished the game - would you believe that I thought it was endless all these years, but either I did not have the time to reach the end or the batteries died before I did). Perhaps it was that soothing sound of the “bong, bong, bing, beep” - you hear it now, too. Anyway, anyway (there is a point here, I promise), someone finally made a brick-breaking game and mashed up with a survivor-like, AND it is a roguelite!

Still works all these years later

Developed by Kenny Sun and published by Devolver Digital, Ball X Pit is “a brick-breaking, ball-fusing, base-building survival roguelite.” That is a lot to unpack, isn’t it? Brick-breaking is somewhat similar to Alleyway and other games in that you launch the ball towards bricks (enemies in this case), and it will ricochet around until it returns to you. Ball-fusing refers to the upgrade process where you can combine the powers of different balls into one “mega” ball, for lack of a better term, that does the damage of both kinds of balls in one go. Base-building is exactly that. You unlock blueprints that ultimately benefit each run you go on in the Pit. The survival roguelite portion is the actual gameplay loop that places you in a forward-moving corridor, and you must defeat the hordes descending from the top of the screen until you face the boss.

All those systems at work might make this game seem overly complicated, but it functions quite smoothly and is easy to understand. You begin any run by choosing a character. You have to play as The Warrior for your first run until you can unlock some of the other characters. The Warrior’s starting ball is Bleed, which causes damage over time to the enemies it strikes. Other characters start with different balls, like Burn and Freeze, but all balls are available to all characters. Characters are not just defined by their balls. The Warrior is the only character with no special abilities, but the other playable characters all come with a unique attribute. The Cohabitants are a couple that fire in two directions at the same time, but do half damage while The Shade fires balls from the top towards you instead of from the bottom of the screen.

As soon as the run starts, a big difference between Ball X Pit and brick-breaker games is that you do not have to “catch” the ball. You can, and some abilities provide benefits to doing so, but the balls are automatically fired continuously as you play (some do have short cooldowns). In addition to the specific balls, baby balls follow suit which just do normal damage to anything they strike. As enemies are defeated, you collect experience gems and coins. Upon filling the experience bar, you are presented with a choice of upgrades: new balls or passive abilities. This is where the ball-fusing comes into play.

Early on, you are limited in your selection of balls. As new characters and levels are unlocked, new balls become available to use (Listen, no matter my age, I still have an immature side and those last 2 sentences were difficult to write/type without laughing. If you laughed, let’s be friends. If you didn’t, I don’t care). Balls can rank up to Level 3, at which point, two Level 3 balls can be fused. This will combine the abilities of both balls (for example, the Bleed ball and the Fire ball will simultaneously cause Bleed and Fire damage), AND it frees up an available slot for another ball. Additionally, once balls are fused, those base balls become available to equip once again. Huh? So say you have Fire, Freeze, Bleed, and Dark. If you fuse Fire & Freeze, and Bleed & Dark, you are left with 2 balls and 2 open slots. Upon earning enough experience, you may see a Fire, Freeze, Bleed, or Dark ball again as a choice. We are not done just yet, though. Some ball combinations do not just fuse, but completely evolve.

When back at your base, you can access the Encyclopedia to see everything you have found. During a run, the game will tell you what balls synergize with other balls when they come up as a selection so need to memorize anything. I did find this handy chart on Steam, though:

Credit to Felix on Steam - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3590769854

A few more evolutions, though, and Nintendo might sue someone…

Similar to the balls, passives are upgradeable during the run, and some pairings can even evolve. Passives include bonus critical damage to different sides of enemies, faster movement speed while aiming, a chance to heal when attacking, or increasing the range you pick up gems and coins.

And now for the base-building…

Here’s the deal: 1) I invest entirely too much time and then don’t play the game (see Fallout 4/76); 2) I see base builds online and get jealous/angry (see Fallout 4/76; or 3) Preston Garvey PTSD. Ok, maybe it’s a Fallout problem. In Ball X Pit, base building is light-years different. You COULD get fancy and spend hours upon hours, but being functional works just as well, and you can see the results immediately. In the beginning, there was just wheat and forests. No, really, you can only build wheat fields and forests for lumber. After placing them in your base, the option to harvest becomes available. Upon harvesting, you launch workers like balls in a brick-breaker game. Harvest has a timer (which can be upgraded), and the workers will bounce around for the duration. Any resource they cross over, they collect. When you construct new buildings, workers will have to bounce off the building X number of times to complete the construction. It was quite enjoyable creating a layout and just watching the workers fly everywhere anytime you were ready for the harvest.

That said, there was some irritation in the later stages of the game as structures had to be moved around so new construction could even be hit by the workers. Granted, I was impatient and needed to complete the construction immediately. You could let it happen naturally, but what fun is that? The game provides quite a large space (after upgrading) to set up your base as you like, without feeling you “have” to create some megalopolis. There are even automated tasks that can help you as you progress towards the end of the game. My only wishlist entry for this portion of the game would be to allow for the launch point of the harvest to span the entirety of the bottom of your base. While workers will eventually reach the outer edges, sometimes you want to target an area and either have to move stuff closer or hope you reach it with enough time on the clock.

ACCESSIBILITY

Ball X Pit has a slew of options players can tinker with, separated into General, Video, and Audio.

Under general, the following are toggleable: screen shake, controller vibration, damage numbers (on screen), and level-up stats screen. You can manually activate the level-up screen - by default, it opens whenever you earn enough experience. There is also an aim sensitivity slider and full control over button mappings.

Video options include your standard choice of resolution and full-screen/vsync toggles. Font can be swapped between Pixel and High-Res.

There are options to reduce flashing colors, disable swirling background, and hide blood on enemies. Lastly, players can set the quality preset from low to high or custom. Custom includes a wide variety of selections: Bloom, SSAO, CRT Effect, Chromatic Aberration, and Vignette Effect.

Audio has the option to disable enemy chanting and sliders for music volume and overall SFX volume. Within SFX, individual SFX can be adjusted to your liking.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Ball X Pit is a special game. Fans of brick-breaking games will surely enjoy this fresh take on the genre. I will always hold Alleyway near and dear to my heart but the replayability this game offers is leaps and bounds ahead. Hell, it got me to enjoy base-building, so maybe there is hope for me after all. There is plenty of depth here (get it - pit!), and even for those who just want to play the game, beat the game, and move on, there is a lot to experience on the journey. As many readers of my reviews know, I LOVE roguelites yet I barely mentioned it in this review. The basic blueprint of the roguelite, try, die, and repeat, is here, but the way it presents itself in Ball X Pit makes you almost forget. Plus, the inherent frustration that is so endearing to me with roguelites is gone. Yes, you do want to try again, but there is stuff to do in between, and runs are wildly different, so it’s not all about trying to get a few steps closer, as your next round can be full of balls of different shapes, colors, and sizes (sorry, could not help myself with that one). This is a must-play title for 2025 and on, and it is available on PC and consoles right now.