Ball x Pit is pretty good.

There's a formula that seems to work pretty well, combine a simple and familiar game mechanic with rouge like/lite elements and you've got a good chance at a winner. Balatro was poker, Rent is a Landlord was slots, Ball x Pit is Breakout.

As is the trend, these games are simple to pick up and win based on how well they can stack systems and unlocks. Ball x Pit does this pretty well. I played through to the credits and enjoyed my time with it but overall it's a mild recommend. Now that I am done with the levels my desire to keep playing has gone but it was good while it lasted.

At the start you have one player and some initial items unlocked. Enemies fall in from the top of the screen and you damage them by hitting them with balls. If they get too close for too long or reach the bottom of the screen you take damage. Your goal is to reach the end of the level, beat the mini-bosses and final boss and repeat.

To get the job done you'll pick up experience and level up. You can add multiple special balls to your inventory, each of which has different effects. You can also add items which unlock some passive and active side effects.

There's also items called 'reactors' that drop and either give you some free levels or let you combine items. Some items 'evolve' unlocking new skills, others can just be fused together to add their effects and free up room for more items.

As you play through more you'll unlock more characters, each with their own quirks. One shoots balls from the back of the field rather than the front, another changes the game to be turn based. There are a couple of duds but overall they're each interesting and keep the game feeling fresh.

Characters themselves level up as you use them, increasing their stats and unlocking some side effects for the 'town' that you manage in between levels. The town lets you place buildings that collect resources and provide some general meta progression across characters. I didn't really like this part of the game. I can see what they were going for with it but I found the placement of buildings and the interaction with them more frustrating than interesting.

If you beat a level for the first time with a character, you unlock 'gears' which are used to open up future levels. Beat them all and you unlock a new game plus. For the most part, new levels are a ramp up in difficulty and not much else. Some have unique mechanics but for the most part the same strategies work across the board.

This is where I think the game falls down a little. Once you've found a combo that works you can replicate it fairly easily with all the characters. There's very little randomness at play so most runs looks fairly similar. It may have been the way I was playing but playing run after run got a little stale. I pushed through to the credits and to hit about 65% of the achievements on Steam. At the time of writing about 9% of players have hit the credits so either I am particularly quick to play through or I'm not the only one feeling the repetitiveness of the game.

All this being said, the game is pretty cheap, pretty easy to pick up and fun enough that I was happy I gave it a go. It didn't quite live up to the level I was hoping but there's plenty of praise around the web for it so it's worth giving a shot for yourself.