We love to stretch the definition of what types of games we can cover here on Card Gamer, though I think that CloverPit may well mark a first for us: it’s a game which doesn’t have any card-based element at all. So why cover it? Well, there’s enough crossover here in terms of genre influence that we figured it’d be good to keep you, our faithful readers, informed as to whether or not the roguelike action in CloverPit is worth your hard earned cash. So with that justification out of the way, let’s check it out!

What Is CloverPit?

A slot machine game with horror overtones and a grimy, lo-fi aesthetic, CloverPit is a fusion of the high score, combo building addictiveness of Balatro with the spooky, low polygon ambience of Inscryption. You’re trapped in a room with a slot machine, a telephone, a computer, an ATM and an item shop. Oh, and a very unstable grate which drops you straight to hell if you fail to deposit enough coins in a set number of rounds on the slot machine.

How to Play CloverPit

The main gameplay of CloverPit is the slot machine itself. Though you’ll just be pulling the lever most of the time, you can buy Charms that can influence, or give you big bonuses for, numerous outcomes of your spins. These work similarly to the Jokers in the aforementioned Balatro, and you can certainly chain effects to make combos that’ll see your coin rewards climb ever higher, in more and more satisfying ways. Some Charms also allow you to press the big red button on the slot machine for a bonus, but you’ll have to use these wisely as they need to be recharged, unlike standard Charms.

After some rounds, you’ll be able to answer the telephone and get yourself some extra assistance in the form of passive upgrades, and you can check your progress with unlocking new Charms on the computer in the corner of the room you’re trapped in.

So, about those Charms. As mentioned, they really are just like the Jokers in Balatro; similarly to the Jokers in that very popular, poker-based roguelike, there’s also 150+ of these Charms to find, use and unlock. You can use up to seven of them at a time, and this does allow for some really interesting combos. Much like Balatro, you’ll start out looking at what seems to be impossibly high score targets to reach, and your Charms will push you over the line with bigger and more satisfying points totals more often than not, when used correctly of course!

There’s also the dreaded 6 result on the slot machine; get three of these in a horizontal row and you lose all of the coins you’ve accrued for the current round so far, which can be absolutely devastating. There are Charms which can mitigate this risk, however, so there are ways to avoid getting that rather evil looking number on your slots!

Between turns on the slot machine, you’ll be reminded of how many rounds you have left before the dreaded trap door opens and you’re sent down below; when this does happen, there’s no fancy graphical effects or elaborate cut scene. Instead, you’re just sent hurtling to your doom, everything cuts to black and you can start another run on the roguelike slot machine experience.

Is CloverPit Fun to Play?

Though it can certainly be addictive, there’s a few issues which stop CloverPit from achieving Balatro levels of addictiveness. It’s difficult not to weigh CloverPit up against LocalThunk’s critical and commercial poker-based roguelike, and it does definitely suffer from the comparison.

One of the main negative areas is the very basis of the slot machine itself. Though a deck of cards, admittedly with the potential of expanding in number, is limited and you can have a certain expectation of outcomes due to the probability that certain cards can come up, there’s no way to predict or plan for outcomes in CloverPit. Slot machines, by their very nature, are pretty random after all!

Yet of course, the Charms can and do mitigate this to a certain extent. You can purchase Charms which influence the amount of, say, cherries that appear, and then build on that by purchasing more cherry-related Charms. It still feels a little too random though, which does work against CloverPit.

There’s also the tactile nature of walking around and interacting with elements in the room between rounds. Though it’s cool to have a “physical” space, rather than the menu or “path” style interactions beyond normal rounds in other roguelike games, in practice this can be somewhat fiddly, making it a less than satisfying experience.

Though I’ve also compared CloverPit to Inscryption, due to its overall, horror-infused aesthetic, there’s definitely a lack of strong narrative sense, or any hints at something bigger happening than just the core gameplay. There are two different endings to unlock, but it does feel as if the theme is pasted on, and doesn’t fully justify itself by the climax.

Another big problem I found with CloverPit is that, with the screen so heavily focused on the slot machine itself while you play, the Charms can’t be seen while you’re spinning the reels, and that takes a lot away from seeing combos trigger. Though the symbol of each Charm does slide into view when they trigger, they just aren’t distinctive or characterised as clearly as, for example, Balatro’s recognizable Jokers, so it’s really easy to forget why your winnings are pinging up into the hundreds or thousands at times. The murky, grime-filled environment adds a lot of atmosphere, but it’s at the expense of clarity in the mechanics and overall outcomes of your spins.

All that said, slot machines by their very nature are incredibly addictive. It’s so compelling to want just one more pull of the lever, or one more round to get your coins spilling out of the machine, with the nicely designed audio adding greatly to the proceedings. Collecting and experimenting with Charms is great, and there’s an undeniable thrill to the ever increasing coin totals that result from doing just that.

The Card Gamer Verdict

CloverPit is available now on Steam:

Why not check out our reviews of Balatro and the unsettling body horror in deckbuilding game, Out of Hands?