It’s almost shameful. To play Clover Pit is to collide with gambling head-on. There, in front of you, is a slot machine, perhaps the purest expression of casino gambling there is. And there’s the handle on the side of the machine for you to spin the drum within. Go ahead and rotate the columns of symbols in the hope they’ll slow and stop into a scoring pattern on the screen. Did they? It doesn’t matter – you can always spin again.
Clover Pit
- Developer: Panik Arcade
- Publisher: Future Friends Games
- Platform: Played on PC
- Availability: Out now on PC (Steam)
For a moment, that’s all Clover Pit seems to be: simple and crass. It even yells “Let’s gamble!” as you spin the drum. It’ll make you wonder why people thought Balatro was problematic – at least that game has the strategic innards of Poker in play. Here you just pull a handle. But that’s not all Clover Pit is. As you get up from the slot machine and take a step away, you’ll see a room around you, an oppressive kind of basement-slash-prison cell. And there on the tables and walls around you are the things that make Clover Pit tick.
But hang on: why are you in a basement? You don’t know. All you know is you’re here to spin in solitude. There’s no one else and no discernible way out, though there is a grated metal trap-door beneath your feet, which looks like it could give way at any time… And you’re in debt – a debt which rises each round that you play. A machine on the wall shows you how much debt you owe, and has a coin slot for you to put your winnings into, to repay it. Spin the drum, win the coins, satisfy the debt. That’s what you know. Or else.