BALL x PIT Review

 BALL x PIT is a “brick-breaking, ball-fusing, base-building survival roguelite” developed by Kenny Sun and published by Devolver Digital. I remember seeing this in quite a few game presentations, and it always intrigued me, so I had to jump at the chance to check it out. Although, this review is going to be difficult to write without overusing the word “balls”. The game itself is called “Balls.exe” so, um, you’ve been warned.

...That's a problem.

The great city of Ballbylon has fallen… quite literally, as a meteor from seemingly nowhere has turned the place into a giant pit filled with monsters and gold. With the possibility of riches beyond their wildest dreams, treasure hunters of all walks of life have come to brave the darkness and find whatever lies in the deepest depths. It’s a basic setup that doesn’t go too deep, but it works for a game like this.

As for the graphics, I really liked them. It uses a mix of 2D sprites and 3D models made to look like sprites, like a really high-quality original PlayStation title, and the dreary backgrounds allow the more brightly coloured balls to stand out. All the warnings and tells remain clear as day, no matter what. That being said, I did occasionally lose which one was one of my balls or an enemy bullet.

It gets crazier from there.

I also really loved the soundtrack used. It starts off more like background noise, but during bosses, it really ramps up into an epic piece that gets you pumped even when dozens of balls are bouncing around the screen. I was genuinely bobbing my head along to the soundtrack. Even the monsters move to the beat a little.

But enough about that, let’s dive down into the pit. Your goal in each level is to make it to the end and beat the boss. It won’t be easy, though, as there are hundreds of enemies in your way, and if they get near you or reach the bottom of the screen, they’ll attack and take a chunk of your health. Not only that, they’ll also shoot at you with arrows, icicle spears, lasers, and so much more to stop you.

You defend yourself by shooting special and baby balls to attack, which come in a whole host of different types with a variety of effects. There are ones that can create lasers, earthquakes, spiders, burn, poison, shock, and more! With over 60 available, you’ll be spoiled for choice.

Fuse your balls. Any of your balls.

However, you can only hold up to four balls at a time, but have no fear, as picking up a Fusion Reactor will allow you to fuse them together to combine their effects and make room for more. If you have the right ones, they can evolve and turn into something more powerful… which you can then fuse with another ball to make it even stronger!

It’s a pretty wild system that feels great to interact with. You’re encouraged to experiment with fusions and take equipment you might not usually choose, because you’ll never know if you stumble upon something truly insane, such as a Blizzard x Sandstorm. That not only freezes enemies, but also blinds them too! I… I don’t know if that’s ironic. With so much freedom, it’s practically daring you to exploit the system, and I’m all for it. This is all necessary, as it combines into a gameplay loop that’s both a bullet heaven and a bullet hell simultaneously; that's great!

And that’s not to mention the many characters you can unlock. Each one is unique in its own way, having different starting items, stats, and special abilities. For example, The Cohabitants has you play as two characters at once, while The Shade has you shoot from the top of the screen, which synergises with a lot of items. Heck, there’s even a character called The False Messiah, whose main gimmick is Twitch Integration. It’s worth playing all the characters, as beating levels with a character that hasn’t been used will unlock blueprints for upgrades.

What a ragtag bunch of misfits.

But where do these go? Into New Ballbylon, the town you will be rebuilding from the ground up. Between your attempts, you can head back to the hub to the resources collected in your run to build new buildings, farms, and all that junk to create a functioning society. You can also harvest resources from the buildings themselves, but it’s done in a much more engaging way.

With your heroes acting like balls, you’ll shoot them out to collect and build everything they hit. The more you unlock and the stronger they get, the better your harvest can be. You can only do this once per trip for free, so you’d better be strategic with where you shoot. It’s basically a highly customisable pinball table.

Improving the town will unlock permanent bonuses and new characters, so it’s worth spending the time and effort to ensure it’s reaching its maximum efficiency. Eventually, you can automate the process and have your treasure seekers collect resources over time so you can focus on diving deeper into the pit.

Your town is also a pinball table.

I have to admit, managing the town is just as addictive as slaying monsters. Not only do they naturally affect one another, it’s satisfying to make a real city that can generate all the resources you’ll need to keep improving it. The upgrades themselves are seriously interesting too, ranging from increasing the scaling of stats and lower costs, to being able to bring two characters and combine their abilities. You can see and feel how stronger you become after each and every run.

However, this doesn’t mean anything if the game doesn’t function, but thankfully, I didn’t run into a lot of problems throughout my playthrough. It ran perfectly at 60 FPS, no matter the chaos that happens on screen. The load times were lightning fast too, to the point where there really isn’t any. However, I did suffer a freeze… as soon as a boss died, costing me a very productive run. That left me a little sad, but I jumped back in to regain that progress. If I had any issues, well, I found it a little annoying that there aren’t hints for fusions.

Can you brave the pit?

I really loved BALL x PIT. Its gameplay is addictive to no end, and every aspect just enriches the experience that much more. And for only 500 MB, 30 hours of content is a lot! Go pick it up, I highly recommend playing and fusing with as many balls as possible.

BALL x PIT will be out on the 16th of October 2025 on Steam, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.