I’ve never once been even slightly tempted to risk my money in the real world, but in video games I love gambling. I’ve spent hundreds of hours of my life trying to win big in virtual poker and blackjack, hoping to earn more money for new gear for my party members or hoping to unlock flashy new special attacks. There was even an old Persona game I played on the PSP where I actually never got past the casino, because I preferred gambling there to fighting demons. All my gambling dreams have come true in CloverPit, because it’s a Roguelike where all you do is pull the lever of a slot machine and aim for a jackpot.
This probably sounds like a fun little distraction full of colours and flashing lights, but CloverPit is anything but cheery. Set in a dark decrepit room, a voice announces you need to earn a certain amount of coins in three rounds or the pit below you will open and you’ll die a horrible death. There’s not much else to do but grab a handful of coins and get cranking, so ignoring the empty bottles and bloodstains on the wall that’s what you do. There’s clearly something horrific behind this nightmarish situation, but you’ll need to get lucky at the slots to find out more.
With a target to aim for, it’s time to start spinning. The slot machine in CloverPit features five reels with various icons on, and three rows that you’ll use to score with. Any three matching symbols in a row will grant you some coins, but the longer a line the better. There are also various patterns that’ll reward you with even more coins, and a jackpot that will shower you with riches if every icon on your grid of fifteen is the same. Sounds simple enough, but luck alone won’t lead you to victory here.
Opposite the slot machine in your little prison cell is a shop, full of charms you can buy to improve your chances of success with tickets. These have a huge array of effects, from charms that make lemons turn gold making them incredibly high scoring to charms that grant you two extra spins every round. After a while you’ll start to realise that certain charms work well with others to increase your winnings massively, and much like Balatro before it you’ll discover that luck isn’t really that important in winning a run.
Well okay relying on your own personal luck won’t necessarily lead you to victory, but raising your luck stat just might. Certain charms will cause your luck to increase in specific circumstances, like every seven spins of the wheel or on your last spin of the round. If you raise your luck above a certain threshold you are guaranteed to get a jackpot, and the first time I found a way to do this consistently I felt like an absolute genius.
This is only one of many ways to try and game the system and survive a run of CloverPit though. Perhaps you’d rather focus on earning more interest on the money you deposit as you go, and then with a charm that grants you another stack of interest if you get three lines in a single spin you’ll start rolling in dough. Or you could use various means to get rid of lower scoring symbols, and ensure even smaller victories are worth top dollar. Uncovering new strategies for success is incredibly satisfying, and I’m pretty sure I’ve only scratched the surface even now.
There are always more reasons to keep playing CloverPit after your first few victories too, as new charms are constantly unlocked and added to the game. When you succeed in early runs you’ll also unlock some draws in the room you’re trapped in, and you can place an item in these at any time. When I did this I was expecting to be able to keep it in my next run, but to my horror it had been replaced by a human hand. By picking this up I was told my targets would be a percentage higher, but this only made me more intrigued to see what would happen if I could win a run with it sitting on my desk.
CloverPit really manages to finely balance being an infinitely replayable cosy experience and a horrific nightmare perfectly. I’d often forget the sinister side of the game until the shrill sound effect of three sixes appearing on my reels played, or until I got a phone call from a mysterious stranger unexpectedly. Taking a moment to explore your disturbing surroundings is even enough to unnerve you, but at least there’s a toilet you can use to take massive dumps I suppose.
CloverPit is one of the most effortlessly compelling Roguelikes I’ve played all year, but I must admit it took a while for it to really hook me. This is for the most part because the language of the game is rather hard to learn at first, with phrases like chain ranking and pictures of patterns entirely unexplained when you’re reading through the effects of various charms. For a long time I just ignored some of the best charms in the game because I simply didn’t understand what they did, and the game could do a better job at teaching you about key mechanics to ensure this doesn’t happen.
CloverPit is going to keep me hooked for years to come, because it’s just so intelligently made with so many ways to try and build the perfect run. Coupled with the compelling nature of watching the slot machine spin and land on the right symbols, it’s incredibly difficult to put down and made reviewing other games much harder for me. With its lo-fi cry of “Let’s go gambling” etched into my heart, CloverPit will be a game I won’t soon forget for so many reasons.