The latest iteration of Steam Next Fest is drawing to a close, but that's fine because I've not only found an excellent roguelike at the very last minute, but it's sticking around after the Fest has wrapped up so we can all enjoy it a little longer.
Ball x Pit combines the auto-firing, skill-blending roguelike stylings of Vampire Survivors with a bouncy arcade homage to Breakout. As you venture into the city-sized hole left by an apocalyptic, city-destroying strike, the undead denizens march forth to force you back. To stop them, you'll spit out an endless stream of projectiles, which bounce and ricochet off your opponents, dealing damage with each strike.
Aim right, and your projectiles will ping-pong around the backlines of your advancing enemies, stacking up multiple strikes as they go. Eventually, they'll make their way back out of those lines of infantry, flying back towards you. They might bounce chaotically around for a few moments, but if you're well-positioned, you can grab them early, shooting them back out towards your cursor to get the optimal ricochet.
Some projectiles are simple instances of ballistic damage. They'll bump into an oncoming enemy with no real stopping power, but their strength in numbers means they're an important part of your defenses. What's much more fun, however, are your 'special' projectiles. These might freeze, poison, or electrocute oncoming enemies, eventually letting you juggle a whole host of bonus damage effects that might further synergize with those basic projectiles from earlier; one upgrade means that a burning enemy will set fire to projectiles that hit them, which will then go on to deal additional damage to the next target they hit; a frozen enemy might shatter when they're hit, dealing damage to units around them.
Those upgrades are the next part of Ball x Pit's Vampire Survivors homage. Certain upgrades fuse together - a ball of mud and an orb of poison combining to the AoE Swamp effect, or a slow-moving ball of metal synergizing with a lightning effect to shove a lightning rod into the heads of oncoming enemies. The correct combinations can even combine with each other, creating powerful fusions that stitch together a whole host of different effects, all while offering you extra upgrade space so you can do even more with your build.
When it all comes together, it's like a laser show of different effects, many of them sparking off one another to bounce madly around the arena, which gradually widens as you delve further into the pit. That means more units coming towards you at once, which means you're at greater risk - if an enemy reaches your end of the screen, it'll leap towards you, dealing damage. You've also got to consider where you stand compared to all those oncoming foes - more width means more room to manoeuvre, but it also means more enemies to get close too. Spend too long standing within range of an opponent, and they'll make you pay for it.
The Ball x Pit demo only grants access to one 15 minute run, which suggests that you'll be able to cook up even more on other maps. But staying alive for 15 minutes is no easy task, so you'll want to make use of your time outside the pit to level up. In an impressive piece of commitment to the bit, Ball x Pit combines its city builder-style progression systems with yet another Breakout homage. To gather resources or complete buildings, you'll need to fire your units into them, hoping that as they cannon off one location they'll ping off another so that you can get as much as possible out of each day's harvest. It's not the most obvious solution, and it can be frustrating to waste an entire turn on a missed shot, but there's something to be said for sticking so closely to the brand.
I try out a lot of roguelikes in every Next Fest, and this time has been no exception. But Ball x Pit immediately grabbed my attention. It would be a shame, then, that I waited so long to stumble across it, except for the fact that I only found it because the demo's being extended. That means you can still pick it up for a little while after Next Fest ends, which means that Ball x Pit is going to continue to entirely swallow up my free time for a good while yet.
My other favorite Next Fest roguelike is a Balatro-style take on slot machines that seems like it might be Localthunk's nightmare.
