Cloverpit – The Slot Machine Wants You Dead

Slot machines are bright, flashy, and designed with one purpose: to methodically drain your wallet while giving you just enough hope to keep feeding them coins. Cloverpit leans into this bleak reality with gusto. You’re in a grimy, prison-cell-like room with a dilapidated, blood-stained slot machine, and you have a debt to pay.

You make enough money within a few rounds, your debt “Deadline” increases. On the chance you don’t meet the needed amount, the floor opens up and you plummet to your death. Oh! All while this is happening, a snarky, subtitled narrator explains your grim predicament, mocking you as you spin for your life.

Slot Coins, And Tickets, And Charms! Oh, My!

Winning at the machine earns you more slot coins and tickets. Tickets are your currency for survival, used to buy “lucky charms” from a dusty cabinet behind you. These charms are the heart of the game’s strategy, offering bonuses that range from simple trinkets to mind-bendingly complex items. Unlocking these charms, which you do by hitting gameplay milestones—including, yes, taking a dump in the world’s filthiest toilet—is key to building a winning run.

The game constantly forces you into tough decisions. Before each round, you can choose to take three spins and get two tickets, or go for seven spins and only get one. It’s a brilliant risk-reward mechanic that dangles the choice between spinning to meet your money goal or buying a game-changing charm. Between Deadlines, a grimy red phone rings, offering you a choice of three random buffs or debuffs.

Is Cloverpit a Worthy Successor to Balatro?

The comparison to Balatro is unavoidable, especially since they’re often bundled together on Steam. Both games are about manipulating luck, but where Balatro feels like a game of skill where you bend luck to your will, Cloverpit often feels like you’re just begging luck to notice you. In the game, you’re mostly just grabbing the best charms you can afford and hoping the machine doesn’t decide to kill you.

This reliance on the slot machine’s whims is both the game’s greatest strength and its most significant weakness. The thrill of hitting a massive jackpot out of nowhere is incredible, but the frustration of a run ending because the machine simply refused to pay out is just as potent. You never feel fully in control because, just like in the saying in casinos, the house (in this case, the slot machine) always has the upper hand.

Yay or Nah for Cloverpit? A Big YAY!

Despite its heavy reliance on RNG, Cloverpit is ridiculously compelling. Runs are fast, so a bad beat never stings for too long. You’re always just one more spin away from a comeback, one more ticket away from a charm that could turn the tide. A leap of faith that will give you another day to pull the lever, or will let you fall to your doom.

The creepy, Inscryption-esque atmosphere is the bees’ knees. Why are you here? Who is torturing you? What’s in that meat bin below the machine? The game revels in its unsettling mystery, and discovering its secrets—like what happens when you put a charm in one of the drawers—is a huge part of the fun.

Final Thoughts: Pull the Lever, Gamer.

While it doesn’t quite hit the strategic highs of Balatro, Cloverpit succeeds on its own grim terms. It’s a game about the seductive, unfair nature of a one-armed bandit that will have you saying “just one more run” long into the night. If you’re looking for a dark, challenging roguelite with a unique theme, you owe it to yourself to step into the pit.