Developer: Panik Arcade
Steam Deck Compatibility?: Verified
Rrp: £8.50 (Steam)
CloverPit is a game I really want to like. I think the developers were really smart to use a graphical style that adds the griminess of the game. It reminds me of the way that the original Quake looked where you could tell what something was but not any real details. Unfortunately I just couldn’t get into it, and I really did try.
In CloverPit you are someone who somehow ended up in a very claustrophobic room with a slot machine in it. The aim of the game is to use the slot machine to earn enough money to eventually buy the keys to the door beside you and escape. The problem is you have a deadline to stick to, not one based on time but instead based on rounds, in this case a round being a set of pulls on the slot machine. Each time you succeed to win the money you need a new deadline gets put into effect and if you fail to stick to a deadline, you discover that the ‘dead’ part of that is quite literal.
Of course, there are ways to influence the results of the slot machine, such as the lucky charms. You can only have seven of them (at least to begin with) and they can do quite a number of different things such as increasing the likelihood of a specific symbol appearing, increasing the value of a symbol, saving your life for a time and so much more.
I believe this is the third game I’ve played that uses a slot machine as its main mechanic but for some I just couldn’t get on with this one. I continued to think about why that was as I was playing and struggling to put into words. That was, until I watched a video by Adam Millard – The Architect of Games titled ‘Are Games Getting Too Random?’. In that video he gave voice to that feeling I couldn’t explain when he spoke about CloverPit. Quote “CloverPit is also a slot machine game, but rather than giving you any direct control over the wheel, you can really only hedge your bets over a particular symbol or shape and after that it’s up to RNJesus, making your wins feel kind of unearned and your losses all the more frustrating.”
So, yeah. I didn’t get on with it. I know a lot of people enjoyed it a lot and I’m glad they did but it’s just not one for me.
