Gambling has become incredibly pervasive in North America as of late. We’re absolutely inundated with calls to go to online and physical casinos, join sports betting sites, and buy tickets to lotteries and charity lotteries. It seems like the money spent on gambling is multiplying exponentially and it’s becoming an endemic societal problem. With all that going on in the real world, it’s no surprise that the trend towards gambling has been mirrored in the gaming world as well. Balatro took the whole world by storm and there are tons of gambling games popping up, from the recent slot machine RPG Slots & Daggers to the forthcoming Dice A Million.
Recently though, another gambling game has been selling like hotcakes and for good reason. CloverPit from Panik Arcade and publisher Future Friends Games has taken the idea of slot machine gambling to a whole new level. What’s wild here is that CloverPit isn’t actually a gambling game but instead a horror game disguised as a gambling game. The entirety of the game is you locked in a dingy room with a demonic slot machine. If you run out of money, you die. Game over. You literally fall down a pit and splatter. If you manage to scrape together enough money, you keep going…until you die. Now that might not sound fun to some people (especially those of us who do not gamble in real life) but be assured it’s actually wildly compelling.
You see, this is not just a slot machine game but it’s also a roguelike. Each time you die, you learn more about the nature of the game, what to do, and how to survive longer. The room contains a slot machine, but it also contains a case with six items you can buy with tickets. Those items change the algorithm that wins are calculated on, boosting luck, providing permanent (for the run) bonuses to items, and modifying the number of spins and multipliers you get. As you play, fulfilling certain conditions unlocks more items, allowing you to further manipulate how the odds work. At first, you can only use 7 items at a time, but that slowly changes as different types of items appear and you gain bonuses.
Each time you meet the goal or “deadline”, you stave off death and get bonuses. Do it early enough and you’ll get additional tickets, allowing you to buy more powerful items. Once the deadline is met, a phone rings and offers you permanent (for the run) boosts as well. Choosing ones that pair with your items is a key strategy in succeeding in CloverPit because you need to get those multipliers up fast! You start needing less than 100 coins for the first deadline but things rapidly escalate to a million or more gold while you’re busy messing about with various in-game tasks. Eventually you’ll unlock a key, but it won’t get you out of the trap you’re stuck in. Instead you’ll have to find ways to utilize keys that advance the story and unlock new mechanics in the game. There’s no handholding here either. If you don’t figure out what to do, you die and start over. No clues, no hints, nothing. It isn’t too hard to figure out what to do after a bit of experimenting but you can absolutely miss key ideas and fail to progress.
Just because this is a slots game doesn’t mean there’s no story either. A disembodied voice contacts you regularly, teasing you about your gambling addition which persists even with the threat to your very life and making snide comments as you make various decisions. The entire script reinforces that gambling is in general not a great idea and that you, the player are particularly idiotic for continuing in such an obviously deadly trapped room.
CloverPit is deceptively complex. Just when you think you’ve got a lock on a good strategy, new mechanics are introduced and you’ll have to learn how to compensate for all those as well. In the meantime, those deadline goals keep getting higher and the interest you earn on the money you’ve deposited so far just isn’t going to cut it as the prices for everything rise exponentially with the number of deadlines you’ve passed. There are clues hidden about the game reminding you of what you can do and even the comments on your selections have a bit of an impact. Paying attention and making sure your combined items have good effects means staying alive here and if you just stay the course with the same loadout over and over, you definitely won’t progress. That’s unlikely to happen with all the new items that start showing up after repeated playthrouughs, but you could definitely try to play it safe, though you’re guaranteed to die in the process.
This is an odd-looking game too. CloverPit takes a somewhat modernized retro PS1 approach to visual design, with large pixels texture mapped onto blocky 3D shapes to make a uniquely compelling environment. Being locked in a room leaves a limited number of options for visual design but both the slot patterns and the wild items available really enhance the game. The dirty room seems somehow grittier for the limited detail on display and the horrors you’ll see such as severed limbs and more are weirdly gross, an excellent throwback to the 32 bit era. The creativity and subtle (and not so subtle) demonic nods strewn throughout the game effectively support the dark themes of the game and when you fail a deadline, the flashing lights make your panic almost palpable.
Sound is a different store here, mostly because the sound in CloverPit is very minimalist. There are the standard slot machine sounds such as handle pulls and wheel spinning noises, but there are a lot of fleshy, meaty sounds too. There’s not much of a soundtrack here and it quietly fades into the background with the sound effects taking the lead, uncommon for games. There is only one voice and it’s the slot machine when you start to gamble, but if you’re paying very close attention, that attention might be elsewhere.
The only real frustration with CloverPit is how random it is. IF you’re already a gambler, this isn’t a big deal, but for those that aren’t, you’re going to die. A lot. And you’re going to have to be patient learning how to die effectively to progress. Starting over again and again is both tiring and time consuming and if you’re not picking up what to do next very fast, could lead you to step away. This is also a very light game from a gameplay standpoint and you’re really not doing anything aside from pulling a handle, selecting items, and depositing coins.
On the Xbox, there’s also an additional control issue that doesn’t exist on the PC version of the game. CloverPit was clearly designed with a mouse and keyboard in mind and shifting to controller means you’re using the stick to select where you want to focus in order to pull handles, pick items, and more. Unfortunately, the response time on the controller is a bit slow, leading to additional time spent trying to select things. The game also doesn’t consistently move the highlighting where you want it to go, meaning that you’re often selecting something you had no intention of selecting or accidentally buying something from the item shop you hadn’t intended to due to slight input lag. Without confirmation screens for purchases, it’s easy to ruin a whole run by clicking on the wrong item to purchase at the wrong time.
Even though it’s not perfect, CloverPit is very compelling. The gameplay loop is fun, the tidbits of story practically ooze evil from every phrase and sentence, and the gratification you get when your chained combos start to trigger is excellent. This is a game that keeps you wanting to come back even if you don’t want to and also doubles as an excellent time killer because it can be played in fairly short bursts until things really start triggering and loops get longer. The tight, controller experience that is CloverPit is one hell of a good time (pun intended) and you’re going to love every minute of learning how to play it and trying to make it through just one more deadline to find out what’s really going on and why you’re trapped and likely doomed in that tiny room!
This review is based on a digital copy of CloverPit provided by the publisher. It was played on an Xbox Series X system using a 55” 1080p Sony TV. CloverPit is also available for PC on Steam.
Nate Van Lindt has been a gamer since the days of yore (aka Commodore 64), and has played a bit of virtually everything out there. He's also an avid comic book collector, both vintage and current, and reads a fair amount of sci-fi and fantasy. On top of that, he watches a fair number of movies and TV shows as well. Oh, and he has a family, a full-time job, and lives somewhere in the urban wilds of Southwestern Ontario, Canada, foraging for old video cables and forgotten game soundtracks.