I happen to think that game development is one of the most interesting things you can do with software. I’ve thought this way for a while, and I want to break into something that I haven’t done before but I’ve considered. Or procrastinated on getting done, really. I want to talk about a game I enjoy. This will become more common ‘round here because I want to write about software and technology and games really occupy a great deal of space where people interact with technology.
Without further procrastination:
Back in October 2025, I picked up BALL x PIT. The name didn’t really do much for me, but I saw someone playing it and it had the whiff of something I’d enjoy. Other outlets breathlessly calling it “the next Balatro” really caught my attention. Balatro makes a certain kind of brain glow white hot, and I’m still enjoying navigating Gold Stake and gradually working towards Completionist++.
BALL x PIT is not the “next Balatro.” This was especially true in October. I figured that I got my money’s worth out of the time I put into it but there isn’t quite the same depth. I set it down in December because I had juiced it for all it was worth. Meanwhile, I’m still (still!) learning new approaches to Balatro after picking it up in March 2024.
My gripe with BALLx PIT was that as soon as you had really completed a build, the stage ended. You didn’t get to enjoy the fruits of your labor. In some cases, builds that successfully cleared the screen of enemies were not the same builds that eradicated bosses.
So what changed? Why did I decide to write about it today? A patch that introduced an unlockable endless mode. The rest of whatever the patch did is immaterial to me. The endless mode is the payoff I wanted all along.
Ostensibly, BALL x PIT is some sort of riff on Arkanoid or Breakout or something of that nature. I wouldn’t conceptualize it that way. The part of the gameplay that I think deserves the most attention is that, at its core, this game is about building a system. Everything else is commentary around shaping your chosen characters into an engine that can deliver pure obliteration.
Now that you don’t encounter a hard stop at the end of a short stage, you can tune this running engine into a real destroyer. The game tracks how far you get after you wipe the final stage boss clean. You eventually fill all of the available slots with weapons and accoutrements and you’re left to run wild as deep into the stage as you can.
It turns out that this is all I wanted. A system to tune and a number to grow as large as possible. An update that makes me pick the game back up and approach it in a new way is something that they could have actually convinced me to pay money for. Happily, they didn’t.
Joe Writes Software 