My new pre-sleep ritual is Xbox Ally and ‘Ball x Pit’ — an unexpected Xbox Play Anywhere game of the year contender

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I think one of the most relatable bad habits of the current era is doom scrolling.

It’s a common problem: you go to bed hoping to sleep, but end up scrolling through your phone instead. What starts as a quick check of social media or the news easily turns into a long session, leaving you feeling anxious and overwhelmed by the state of the world.

But what if there was a better way? What if it involved … balls?

Ball x Pit is now available on Xbox, Steam, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch. You can also play it with Xbox Game Pass, and that’s how I got a chance to try out this surprisingly popular and fun ball-bouncing game.

Little did I know it would be the catalyst that completely changed my gaming habits.

Ball x Pit is a simple, retro-style 3D game that’s perfect for quick play sessions and even runs well on less powerful devices. It’s especially good for relaxing before bed, offering a fun distraction from endlessly scrolling through stressful content and promoting a more positive mindset.

What do you even do in Ball x Pit?

Ball x Pit is a game filled with balls – lots and lots of them! There are thousands, coming in all shapes and sizes, and many have special, magical abilities.

Growing up, I discovered many games on demo discs that came with magazines. One I really loved was a Breakout clone called DX Ball. The gameplay was simple – launch a ball and use a paddle to break all the blocks. Ball x Pit takes that same basic idea and expands on it in a really cool way.

Ball x Pit is a unique and addictive game that blends the classic fun of Breakout with elements from popular roguelikes like Vampire Survivors and Loop Hero. You’ll collect a cast of charming, slightly spooky characters, each beautifully rendered in 3D pixel art. Every character offers a different playstyle and special ball-throwing abilities, letting you create powerful and varied builds.

Each level is filled with randomly appearing enemies, each with unique abilities. Defeating them lets you level up, similar to Vampire Survivors, and unlock a range of special projectiles. These projectiles can inflict various effects on your enemies – like poison, fire, bleeding, or explosions – creating exciting and chaotic chain reactions.

As you progress, special power-ups will appear, letting you combine and upgrade your balls in exciting ways – and the game encourages you to try different combinations. Every new combination you discover is saved in a collection, making it easier to find again later. You can unleash things like swarms of mosquitoes, a spreading plague, or even a nuclear missile, and doing so creates even more visual excitement and adds to the fun of destroying everything.

As you advance through each level, enemies become more challenging, eventually leading to boss battles. Understanding a boss’s unique abilities is key to success, as each one has different strengths and weaknesses that will influence how you develop your character’s skills and strategy.

Ball x Pit is a classic roguelike game where you’ll gather resources to build and improve a base, much like in Loop Hero. You can upgrade buildings and combine their effects to boost your characters’ abilities, like attack power, defense, and speed, making each playthrough more satisfying. Even when you’re not playing, your base continues to gather resources for you.

I’ve already put about ten hours into the game, and there’s still so much more to unlock – tons of characters, buildings, and levels. Playing levels again with different characters and aiming for faster times keeps things interesting. Plus, unlocking new levels means discovering new buildings and power-ups to experiment with. It’s incredibly addictive, but in a really good way!

Replacing doom scrolling with balling

I started playing Ball x Pit just when the Xbox Ally and Ally X came out, and it was a welcome surprise. While the standard Xbox Ally struggles with demanding, high-quality games, Ball x Pit runs beautifully. Its unique 2.5D art style means it’s perfect for playing on handheld devices like the Steam Deck or Xbox Ally, letting you get the most out of your battery life.

I often find myself endlessly scrolling through social media like Reddit, X, or Instagram before bed, which sometimes leaves me feeling a little anxious. The Xbox Ally, using Windows 11 and the Xbox app, isn’t perfect yet, and lacks a lot of features. However, once it’s set up, it *does* let you start playing games just as fast as a Nintendo Switch or Steam Deck.

I’ve been really getting into Ball x Pit lately! It’s so well-made and runs incredibly smoothly. Plus, because it’s part of Xbox Play Anywhere and on Game Pass, I’m finding myself playing it more and more on the go. Honestly, I’ve completely swapped my usual late-night phone scrolling for some quality time with the game on my Xbox Ally – it’s been a great change!

Ball Pit is surprisingly a strong contender for game of the year, especially considering how many excellent games came out this year.

I previously owned a Lenovo Legion Go, which is a fantastic device, but it wasn’t very comfortable to use while lying down. The Xbox Ally is lighter and much more comfortable to hold for extended gaming sessions. Plus, recent Windows 11 updates have made it much easier to set up and start playing. The Xbox Ally lets you jump into and out of games faster, and the ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go will receive similar improvements with updates later this year.

Playing Ball x Pit showed me just how much potential Microsoft has with Xbox. To really succeed, though, they need more high-quality games like this available on Xbox Play Anywhere. The game runs great on the Xbox Ally, giving you 4-5 hours of playtime on the lowest power setting. It’s also perfect for Xbox Cloud Gaming if you’re already set up with a phone and a controller like the Razer Kishi V3.

While there are many 2D and 2.5D games available on Xbox Play Anywhere, very few reach the high quality of Ball x Pit. In a year filled with fantastic games, Ball x Pit is surprisingly a strong contender for game of the year.

I apologize if this sounds overly enthusiastic, but this is the first game that truly showed me how positively the Xbox Series X|S has impacted the way I play Xbox games.

Now that the Xbox ecosystem has a strong competitor in devices like the Steam Deck and Nintendo Switch, Microsoft needs to focus heavily on getting more content for this type of handheld gaming. They have a lot of ground to make up in this area.

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2025-10-21 19:41