In my 20s, I would often visit the casino. It didn’t help that I worked as a Bingo Caller and had the money to enjoy gambling without the ‘major’ repercussions. I did have my go-to games, like Blackjack, Craps, and Sic Bo, but I never played the slots. It wasn’t for me, especially because it felt the most rigged of all casino games. But over the last week, I can’t get myself away from CloverPit. This is a unique rogue-like game that combines slots with cryptic horror elements.
Playing for your life
CloverPit shares a lot with Buckshot Roulette. You’re put in a life-or-death scenario where you need to play slots. Your character wakes up in a room, and the only way to avoid death is to play and win in slots. You’re not told why you’re there, and you’re not told how to get out. You have to play. Whereas Buckshot Roulette was a short experience, this is a much longer one.
The conceit here is that you have a debt to pay, and you must earn enough coins playing slots to settle it. You’ll start with a bit of money in your deposit, and a bit to use on your first round of play. You’re given three rounds to collect enough money to progress. Reach the coin requirements, and you move to the next round. This entails paying off more of your ‘debt’.
If you fail to collect enough money, then you die. It’s that simple. But that’s only part of the game. Early on, you see a key in a display case, so you’d assume this key unlocks the door. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t tell you how much you need to collect or if that does unlock the door to freedom.
Trying to cheat the system
Collecting enough coins seems like an impossible task. In the beginning, you don’t get a lot of coins from matching three or more in slots. To increase the odds in your favor, you redeem tickets to earn charms. At the start of a new coin deadline, you have a randomized selection of charms to pick from. These cost between 1 to as many as 7 tickets, depending on what they do. At the start, there are only a few to choose from. But, as you progress and complete tasks, such as using specific charms, you unlock more.
The charms aren’t a foolproof way to progress. Some are very specific. The key is to look for ways to increase your odds. You can focus on trying to increase your general luck. Or, you might focus on increasing the value of the lower valued shapes. In my experience, the best charms are ones that increase shape values. But I also notice that having charms that improve my interest rate between rounds is helpful.
This is where CloverPit can become frustrating because so much of the game relies on luck. Even if you have a full collection of useful charms, if the spins don’t go your way, you will still lose. There were many runs where I would have a strong start, only for things to fall apart when I needed the most coins. Unless I’m missing something, there is no way to adjust, and you have to accept your fate.
A lot to uncover
Yes, the randomization can cause frustration. It sometimes feels like the game is looking for ways to cheat you out of a victory. As you progress, your debt gets larger and larger. Each new deadline typically doubles the debt. But there are a few where your debt jumps significantly.
From what I can gather, there is an ending to the game. As you progress through the game, you’re trying to find a way out of this prison. As I mentioned earlier, there is a key that you earn after collecting enough coins in a run. Unfortunately, that key doesn’t open the door to get out. It only opens a drawer in a cabinet.
There are four locked drawers. Getting the keys to unlock them means getting enough coins in four separate runs. But it’s not that simple. The number of coins needed to get the keys gets more and more difficult. Based on what I can remember, you earn the first key at 12,000 coins collected. The fourth key at 200,000 coins. You can only earn one key per run, so there is no point to keep continuing once you get a key.
Maybe a bit too much randomization
This is not an easy game. Like I said, even with what you think are good upgrades and charms, you won’t always get the spins that you want. In my 20+ hours with the game, my runs end around the 12,000 coin deadline. Going from 2,000 to 12,000 in only three spins is the game’s biggest hurdle. Even with what you think are the best charms, collecting 10,000 coins in three rounds of spins is not easy.
I’ve opened the four drawers. I see what I assume is the final key, but I haven’t gotten even close to it. I was under the assumption I needed to surpass the 200,000 coin mark. For the last eight hours, I’ve been failing to go beyond 12,000 coins. It’s so frustrating that the game will sometimes post annoying messages between runs to tease me. When I finally got past that hurdle, I made it so far as Deadline 10 and a 6 million coin debt. Even at that point, I wasn’t unlocking the final key.
I’m starting to learn that I’ve missed one key element to the game. After unlocking your first drawer, you start to see bones. If you leave charms in the drawers, in the next run, they are replaced with bones. Sometimes you will have random bones in your drawer. Other times, they are available for purchase in the charm shop. The bones are the key to finishing the game.
The bones increase your debt, so I’ve avoided them. Unfortunately, I am going to have to use them. It’s not entirely clear what I need to do. I’ll try a few things out, but my strategy has changed because of it.
I need to see the conclusion
Knowing I’m so close to seeing the end of CloverPit, I’m going to keep going until I unlock that final key. For a game that’s less than 15 dollars, I’ve gotten a lot of value. Yet with better luck, this might be a shorter experience. I’m annoyed that I’m not done yet, but I can’t say it hasn’t been entertaining.
After the fact: The night following the posting of this blog, I did manage to reach the game’s first ending. Unless getting the ‘good’ ending doesn’t involve collecting over 250,000 coins, I don’t think I’ll try to unlock it.
