Ball x Pit is a delightfully deep rabbit hole

It took me a while to get in Ball x hole. The new roguelike mixes elements from games like Go, Vampire survivorsEven city builders create a complex mix of ideas. But as with many roguelikes, once I had everything figured out well enough to taste my first victory, diving into the pit for another round was all I could think about.

Ball x hole It barely has a story – it’s more like a setup. The first moments of the game show a multi-level Gondor-like city called “Pelon” crashing into a giant glowing rock (ball?), and all that’s left is a giant pit that the “treasure seekers” aim to explore. Then, I fell into action. In the beginning, as a knight-like character called the Warrior, you move around a narrow playing field, launching balls at the steadily advancing hordes of enemies. Your character fires automatically and has infinite ammo, allowing you to focus on aiming your shots to get perfect bounces and picking up gems and other goodies dropped by defeated villains.

Like in Vampire survivorsWhen you pick up enough gems, you’ll gain a level, which improves your stats and gives you the opportunity to choose some kind of upgrade, such as special balls that can poison enemies or activate laser beams. Occasionally, enemies will drop small rainbow snails that can level up a bunch of your upgrades at once, allow you to fuse balls together to combine their powers, or evolve two balls into a special new one. With the right combination of upgrades, you can get extremely powerful, with balls and effects flying around the screen as you take down enemies and bosses. When you finish a run, win or lose, your character gets experience that carries over so they can become more powerful in future runs.

After running, you can choose to visit the “New Ballbylon” for last Part of Ball x holewhich involves building the base. During this phase, you can set up things like wheat and forest plots to gain resources or buildings that unlock new characters and permanent stat boosts. To collect resources or build things, you will have to send your characters to jump onto plots and structures by guiding them as you would in the main part of the game. You can also upgrade structures so they offer better perks, and you’ll eventually be able to create buildings that automatically collect resources for you.

At first, I didn’t like the base construction; I just wanted to keep doing headlining tours. But once I had a good resource engine and understood how upgrading buildings worked, I was spending a lot more time than I expected improving my base, which had the added benefit of making things easier when I leveled up again.

Some buildings unlock new characters, and they’re always worth the effort: the characters have widely varied play styles which keeps things fresh. One character takes 5 percent more damage per bounce, so I’ll try launching the balls at tight angles where they can deal massive damage. One character makes the game turn-based. Another character automatically chooses their upgrades, and the game plays one of the last characters you can unlock Completely on their ownwhich I found very useful while trying to improve some of the late game levels and upgrades.

By the end of my time with Ball x holeI’ll admit, I’m starting to feel a bit of the emptiness I feel when I play Vampire survivors now. Once winning became routine, I started focusing on maximizing things in a way that felt more obsessive rather than fun. I’m even ashamed to say that I let the autoplay character handle a bunch of last-level runs while I went off and did other things.

But when you’re in the zone for a good run, the game is an exhilarating, colorful and chaotic experience that feels like an extreme version of the classic game. Go. With so many characters to play and ways to improve your base, Ball x hole It goes deep.

^{Ball x hole Available now on Nintendo Switch, PC, PS5, and Xbox Series On October 28th.}