RoguedexPart 4 (Dec 2025) · #6 of 9 in that tierWatch the moment (0:16:39)
CloverPit
- Developed by
- Panik Arcade
- Published by
- Future Friends Games
$9.99
A rogue-lite slot machine nightmare. Gamble for your life in a never-ending debt simulator!
Consensus
B73.2/100
Steam players90.2% positiveVery Positive26,175 reviews
Metacritic ↗77/100Users: 6.8/10
OpenCritic ↗81/100
VG Insights estimate ↗≈1.7M copies · ≈$12.2M gross
What creators say
Ranked May 2026 · #4 of 7 in that tierWatch the moment (0:13:45)
Ranked Feb 2026 · #8 of 11 in that tierListen to the episode
What players say
A first-person, PSX-styled roguelite where you pull a demonic slot machine in a prison cell to pay escalating debt deadlines, buying Lucky Charms to bend the odds (Balatro meets Buckshot Roulette).
CloverPit is received as a stylish, highly addictive slot-machine roguelite: Steam sits at Very Positive (about 90% of roughly 26k reviews), and critics are generally favorable (Metacritic 77, OpenCritic 81). Praise centers on the grimy atmosphere, sound and tactile feel, the number-go-up thrill and cheap price. The recurring complaint is that it has far less player agency than Balatro: it is luck-heavy, early deadlines can be lost on bad shop rolls, and the growing pool of niche charms dilutes good shops as you unlock more. Metacritic users are noticeably cooler (6.8, mixed) than Steam. After release the dev patched the game (1.2 nerfs, Hard Mode required for holographic memory cards, endless runs removed), which angered parts of the community; 1.3 softened some of this. A paid DLC (Unholy Fusion, April 2026) and console/mobile ports followed, and it reportedly passed 1 million copies by mid-November 2025.
Players love
- Addictive loop: huge dopamine hits on jackpots and a 'one more run' pull, often described as Balatro plus Buckshot Roulette
- Oppressive, grungy low-poly PSX visuals, humour and sound design create a distinctive tense tone (cramped cell, ticking deadline, intercom voice)
- Satisfying number-go-up build-crafting once charm synergies (symbol value, patterns, luck, multipliers) come together, with values climbing into e-notation
- Gambling thrill without real money; several reviewers even call it an anti-gambling statement
- Very good value at $9.99, with a demo whose progress carries over to the full game
- Phone/telephone permanent perks and memory cards add run-to-run variety; big unlock catalog (about 160 charms) gives long replay value for completionists
Common complaints
- Low player agency and skill expression compared with Balatro: you are essentially pressing a button, so outcomes often feel like pure luck
- Charm pool bloat: as you unlock ~160 charms, many are niche or bad and pollute the shop, so progression can make runs worse
- Many charms are considered never worth using (too specific triggers, non-functional effects, no supporting builds), leaving a narrow meta (e.g. interest farming)
- Brutal early game: the first two deadlines are dominated by shop RNG and can fail on consecutive runs even with luck items
- Drawer/charm swapping and camera turning is fiddly and time-consuming
- Post-launch balance patches (1.2) were seen as mostly nerfs that removed fun builds and endless runs
- Late-game and end-of-run flow: cannot just quit at run end, dialogue/animations hard to skip
- Some critics and players find the game runs out of gas and gets repetitive after several runs
- Players flag the in-game odds for the 666 jackpot as misleading (the top-voted Steam review says the displayed chance and the real chance look swapped, roughly 1.5% vs 1/4), which feels unfair in a luck-driven game
Can feel tedious
- Constant charm shuffling in and out of drawers, with repeated camera turns, described as '90% prep, 10% play'
- Grinding for specific memory cards and corpse parts/skull for the real ending, with no way to skip dialogue or animations
- Losing early deadlines due to shop RNG and having to restart at Deadline 1
- Rerolling the charm shop becomes an expensive second slot machine
- Forced Hard Mode for holographic cards and 100% completion after the 1.2 update
- Flashing lights and overstimulation (an option to tone these down was added in 1.3)
What's unique
- Slot machine as the core roguelite engine, with charms modifying symbols, patterns, luck and payouts rather than a card deck
- Survival-horror framing: escape-room cell, debt deadlines, trapdoor on failure, corpse parts and multiple endings
- Telephone calls give permanent deadline-by-deadline abilities that combine with charms
- Memory cards act as single-use run modifiers that can be upgraded (holographic/rainbow) for meta progression
- Deliberate PSX low-poly look, tactile lever pulling and a first-person physical-space interface
- Demo progress carries over to the full game
Players want
- Rework or buff the large set of weak/niche charms and rebalance to reduce dead picks
- Give players control over the shop pool (ban, favorite or remove charms) so unlocks do not dilute good options
- Make memory cards easier to obtain and unlock, and allow reuse instead of single-use consumption; make holographic/Lord of the Pit achievable without forced Hard Mode
- Improve the drawer/charm-swap UI so players do not constantly turn around and click back and forth
- Add more player agency (e.g. freezing rows/columns or other ways to nudge the machine) and smoother early-game odds
- More cosmetic unlockables and QoL: skip dialogue/animations, option to quit cleanly after a run, better accessibility (audio settings, flashing lights)
Summarised from Steam reviews and community discussion.
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Tier list Part 4 (2025)
Clover Pit is a first-person slot machine roguelike where you are locked in a room, gambling to earn enough money to get the key and escape. It blends Luck Be a Landlord's slot-machine idea with Balatro-style multiplicative scoring and Inscription's eerie, interactive-room vibe. He loves the gameplay and the run variety, and the escape motivation kept him playing. He holds it back from S tier because the eerie atmosphere promises a story and spooky events that never really arrive. He still highly recommends it and calls it very solid.
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