BALL x PIT

A good game—underneath a 6-turned-30-hour full run

Developer: Kenny Sun and Friends
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Release: 2025
Platform: iOS, PC (played), PS5, X Series, Switch 1/2, Android, Mac
Genre: Roguelike

In the few instances BALL x PIT goes bonkers beyond what a breakout-clone should be, it truly shines—in an interestingly (pixel art/cel shading hybrid style) well-presented way too. But it also unceremoniously wastes the player’s time just for artificial longevity’s sake while at it—and it’s baffling.

At times levels hit hard (manufactured, by “numbers go brrrr” design), insurmountable ceilings; that’s when progress comes to mandatory halts. The game’s sim half—where the player manages a city and its resources—could be there to alleviate exactly that, but most of the time ends up being as demanding as the actual levels: blueprints must be gathered in core play sessions, construction/upgrading may take several rounds with out-of-place F2P-ish cooldowns at work—and things are obviously screwed when a literal “+0.05 Status Effect Power for each character you’ve completed the BONExYARD with” buff is what raising a tower grants.

It will overwhelm you—and there’s nothing you can do about it for the next couple hours.

There’s a game under the debris—a good one, even. But it’s there for a player willing to manage two unbalanced, simultaneously stalled fronts through a 6-turned-30-hour full run.