Ball X Pit

It was the 12th most-played game in the June Steam Next Fest: Ball X Pit by Kenny Sun and Devolver Digital. This combination of Arkanoid, Pong and bullet-hell roguelite really makes it all about balls.

Ball X Pit is a 'brick-breaking, ball-fusing, base-building survival roguelite' set in a world where Ballbylon has fallen. Following the destruction of the city in an unexpected event, only an ominous pit remains. Treasure hunters seek their fortune in the city's tombs, diving deep in search of its scattered riches. However, the pit is also home to hordes of savage creatures. Armed with an ever-growing arsenal of magic-infused projectiles, players must battle their way through multiple levels of increasingly challenging obstacles in order to rebuild New Ballbylon.

The gameplay is reminiscent of a combination of Arkanoid, Pong, pinball and bullet hell roguelite. The player character fires small balls that bounce off enemies and walls without being immediately destroyed. The player character can move left and right as well as up and down. These balls keep coming back, so players can fire as many as they have. Stationary enemies (as well as boss enemies) repeatedly appear from above and move slowly downwards, causing damage to the player character as soon as they reach the bottom of the screen.

Players must aim skilfully to hit their opponents with bouncing balls, resulting in a wild and chaotic shootout. There are also RPG elements, whereby players collect experience points and improve their stats as they progress through the run. They can combine different special balls to achieve stronger attacks and generate wild, overpowered synergies. The Ball Fusion system encourages explosive experimentation with over 60 randomly generated balls to equip and combine. Some of these are extremely powerful, turning the level into a 'bullet hell' of ricocheting projectiles. Players must also dodge enemy fire while collecting their own bullets.

During the runs, players collect upgrades for the current run as well as currency for roguelite progression, which increases across all runs. This currency can be invested in base building. Over 70 buildings can be used to expand 'New Ballbylon', providing gameplay bonuses and unlocking further power-ups, new characters, and more. Balls are also used here because, at the beginning, you have to fire a ball at the corresponding buildings to build them or harvest resources, and so on. Speaking of which, new characters bring unique skills and have unique, upgradable mechanics. As the number of unlocked characters increases, players can assign automated tasks to keep the resources coming while they explore deeper into the pit. However, I think progress is a little too slow at the beginning.

Ball X Pit is being developed by Kenny Sun and friends. Based in Brooklyn, he has been making games independently since 2007, but did not start releasing commercial work until 2015. Aside from his own projects, he has worked as a gameplay programmer at Harmonix on games such as Rock Band 4, Dance Central VR and Fuser. More recently, he worked with Terrible Toybox as a programmer on Return to Monkey Island. The game's publisher is Devolver Digital, an American video game publisher specialising in indie games. The publisher has been particularly active this year, having already released Look Outside in March, The Talos Principle in April, Gorn 2 in April, Shotgun Cop Man in May, Tron: Catalyst in June, Mycopunk in July, Stick it to the Stickman in August and Baby Steps in September. Following Ball X Pit, Possessor(s) from Heart Machine is due to be released in November, as is Quarantine Zone: The Last Check from Brigada Games. Skate Story from by Sam Eng is scheduled for release in December. Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 has been announced for release in 2026.

Ball X Pit is coming to PC (Steam), Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox Game Pass on 15 October 2025. The Nintendo Switch 2 version will follow later this year.

Conclusion

Ball X Pit skilfully combines bullet hell and roguelite elements to create a distinctive and compelling blend, delivering a thoroughly engaging experience.