CloverPit (Xbox Series X)
To have the devil’s own luck refers to the idea someone must have made some deal with the devil to experience such good fortune, but in the slot machine rogue-like CloverPit, you need to have better luck than the devil to escape the deadly trap you find yourself in. Locked in a small room with a hatch beneath you ready to pop open to send you plummeting to your doom, you’ll need to constantly earn enough cash to keep your devilish tormentor from cutting your life short.
While the game never comes right out and confirms Satan is the one holding you in the grimy little locked room with a half-broken toilet and a slot machine deciding whether you live or die, the iconography certainly suggests this is some twisted game a demonic force has placed you in. A devilish face sneers at you after you’ve taken your turns spinning, you learn to fear the 666 outcome on the slots, and as befitting a master of sin and vice, he’s all too happy to encourage you to keep gambling with the keys you need to make an escape something you’ll have to earn across multiple successful runs to actually make your way out. You only see a bit of text here or there that seems to be his voice though, the compact room you’re stuck in suiting a game that tries to laser focus in on the core task of trying your luck at the slots.
When you start playing CloverPit, you’ll be introduced to the format. You have three rounds of spins to earn enough cash to pay off a debt, and if you don’t earn enough before the deadline, you’re toast. However, each round can comprise of multiple spins, the player able to pay for up to seven before you’re cut off for that round. There’s an ATM where you deposit whatever coins you’ve earned but you also need to make sure you have some on hand to pay for spins, and if you can’t afford the full seven you’ll have to do what you can instead. Thankfully, your fate is not fully in Lady Luck’s hands. The first and simplest way to help you succeed is earning interest, the amount of money you have in the ATM earning you some extra coins each round with the potential drawback of riding the razor’s edge if you don’t keep enough cash on hand for more spins and face a string of bad fortune. Clover tickets though are a more meaningful addition, and where a lot of CloverPit’s actual substance and interesting mechanics arise.
When you normally go up to the slot machine, you’re looking at three rows of five symbols, with different patterns and symbols earning different cash. Lemons, cherries, bells, diamonds, clovers, and sevens arranged to match will be how you bring in cash, but simply spinning with standard odds would see you dying soon since each deadline inflates the price needed to survive. However, you earn a single clover ticket each round and can even pay off the debt early for extras, these tickets going towards lucky charms that will heavily sway how the slot machine can spin. Various trinkets can change things as simple as increasing your luck so a match is more likely to happen to long term investments like turning certain symbols golden so if you make a match with them, it increases the value of the symbol for the rest of your run. Trinkets might have small chances of letting you take an extra spin, they might be like the Lucky Cat where a symbol match gives you a small payout related to your current interest, a charm may increase your luck based on how many tickets you have or allow you to sell your trinkets back for more tickets the longer they sit on your shelf alongside it. A good deal of useful lucky charms need to be unlocked as you play and there’s a fair few that are rather bad or too situational to be worth investing in, but the little charm store behind you will hold up to five items at a time, you can pay to reroll the offerings, and perhaps unsurprisingly there are trinkets to influence the store as well to make it so you can start not just getting helpful items, but finding powerful synergies and exploits to turn the slot machine spins from random chance to constant crazy payouts.
The charms that appear will be mostly random still, but trying to figure out a build for the current run is where the true thrills of CloverPit come from. When you’re starting off a jackpot will have a surprisingly small payout for example, but if you’ve got the kind of charms that increase pattern and symbol value or apply piles and piles of multipliers, a jackpot can truly become the kind of insane windfall that might let you pay up through multiple deadlines. Some charms do require active activation, a button on the machine briefly triggering items that might swing your luck towards certain symbols useful for a brief strong nudge in your direction, although they do have a charge that needs to refill over time so there’s thought put into when to use them and whether such conditional charms may suit your charm setup at all. There is a limit on how many charms you can have at once, although some do expand the amount, so trying to do calculations on the value of items is also a nice layer of strategy that adds some more depth to the CloverPit experience. After each deadline there’s even a phone call where the person on the other line offers you a few options for altering the store or slot machine as well, a player not really needing to sit down and chart out the odds but still having an incredible degree of choice for how to twist things in their favor to the point it can eventually almost feel awkward when you get a spin that won’t be pouring out hundreds of coins to keep up with that ever climbing debt.
After a few deadlines though, CloverPit does introduce a complication that has certainly soured some players on it. A small chance will arise for the player to spin a 666, wiping out all the money they’ve earned during that round or, if you’re going for the true ending, it can wipe out literally all cash you have that isn’t in the ATM already. It’s a terrifying prospect when first introduced and there’s always tension when even one 6 appears in the roll, but often if you’re far enough for it to pop up, you’ve built up your slot machine into something that’s fairly consistent and profitable. The debt does climb enough eventually that every run is fated to eventually lose, although considering the number can climb to such heights it requires scientific notations to represent well beyond the likes of octillion coins that players have actually reached, it is a system that can be broken by a truly inspired and effective mix. Most runs will probably peter out well before then, but there is a true end for those not interested in seeing how far the payouts can go. Your devilish tormentor offers you keys as rewards for hitting certain cash thresholds, and while you can only earn one at a time, eventually you can escape your locked room, although the true ending is a bit more esoteric. The game’s hints for how to earn it are a little vague and require noticing small details, and it is a more challenging run when you attempt it, but CloverPit’s systems, charm synergies, and luck management are intuitive enough that you can potentially see even the true ending without putting absurd amounts of time into the game or relying only on specific builds.
As satisfying as it can be to piece together a wonderfully effective arrangement of charms, as unique as each run can be as you have to adapt to what you’re offered rather than leaning on the same tactics every time… CloverPit is still a virtual slot machine. You’re cranking the machine’s arms, seeing numbers pop up, and while there are some fancy effects and the machine even starts overheating and letting off steam when you’re really on a hot run, but it’s still a technically simple task at the heart of the entire experience. It’s one reason where a spin in the late game where no cash is earned can feel a little sobering, like the psychological effect of all the payouts is punctured and you’re reminded your putting fake money into a machine and just waiting to see what random outcome crops up. Long term goals and a good bit of control make the act more interesting than a normal virtual slot machine, stakes always important to help video game gambling avoid feeling completely frivolous, but besides unlocking new charms there’s not much of a huge incentive to push your luck beyond the more defined objectives. It is for the best though that a game that uses gambling trappings has an off ramp though, because while the gloomy low-poly chamber you find yourself in certainly isn’t a place you normally would want to stay, there’s definitely potential for addictive play even if those debt amounts will normally hit impossible levels in a way meant to be a good indicator that pushing your luck is a doomed fool’s game.
THE VERDICT: CloverPit has some limits since its whole gameplay loop is based on a 15 symbol slot machine, but it still manages to provide tension and excitement beyond simple cash payouts and losses. The lucky charm system and fortune tipping phone calls shift things away from relying purely on random luck to crafting effective synergies that lead to consistent massive profits. Focusing so closely does mean the spooky undertones mostly stay in the background and there are only so many substantial long term objectives to keep you coming back, but that also gives this rogue-like gambling game clear direction so you can dedicate your attention to figuring out the best way to defy bad fortune.
And so, I give CloverPit for Xbox Series X…
A GOOD rating. While having clear end goals may mean you don’t throw yourself into CloverPit for tens of hours compared to some other rogue-likes, it also shakes off that hollow futility of gambling in such a simple format. You can set your own goal of trying to see how far you can take some charms to see the absurd levels the debt can hit, but CloverPit isn’t saying you need to step on an endless hamster wheel of trying to chase huge earnings. The coins you earn only mattering towards the debt or small actions like rerolling the shop helps avoid some of the potential frustrations that high cost actions or the impact of a 666 roll could have lead to, the emphasis on consistent survival keeping your head clear to focus on the more meaningful lucky charm interplay. Picking the obviously good stuff might not have the kinds of insane payouts that an effective mix of ramping effects could, it not too straightforward how you should spend your tickets even before you factor in randomness keeping CloverPit from being too easy to tip immediately in your favor. Perhaps a wilder version of CloverPit could have had the machine expand in more meaningful ways, potentially even in the size of the slots or what outcomes certain rolls could have, but keeping the scope in check makes CloverPit approachable and focuses your understanding on manipulating odds and results rather than having to learn new mechanics or face huge surprises. It is amusing that such a dark and dreary looking game can be so approachable, but even some things like that 666 roll can eventually be turned to your benefit with the right tools, there some strategic depth to be found even if the slot machine’s limits keep it from going even deeper.
CloverPit maybe could have taken a closer look at the seemingly hellish punishment its environment implies or made the slot machine just a piece of a bigger game, but appropriately enough for a slot machine, it’s not aiming to be as complex as contemporaries. It’s a rogue-like that uses temporary upgrades and losing your resources between runs to enhance a task that could have been boring otherwise, so while it’s not quite like a gambler choosing mindless spins at a slot machine over more complicated casino games, it manages to avoid becoming bogged down by needing to make detailed plans or truly calculate the odds. You can spin your way to wins but still feel like enough of your luck was in your hands to make it mean something.