Honestly one of the worst ways to throw away your money on a luck trap. Small spoiler, you have cards in the game that alter the gameplay. These cards either give a buff, or a change and because of the change a nerf with for example, getting an empty charm shop after finishing a deadline in exchange for phone buffs being double value. But here is the problem, you need luck to win the first round. It looks fun to try and finish the game with most cards, and especially on hardmode. But here is the catch, you often enough wont get past round one. Crazy right? You spend one of these cards, and lose it before you can make good use of it. Like the double phone buff, if you dont make the deadline you never get called and you never used the card while losing. This is a huge issue, it is not fun to keep on grinding and hope you get lucky. It completely ruins the game, there should at least be some mechanism to make sure you often enough survive round one. Like why would I ever try holographic cards, where your debt is double, if I can't even get the normal debt amount all of the time?

From the experience I had, this means you'll need to stack up at least 10 cards of the one you want to do, then hope some of them get into the second deadline so you have a chance to actually beat the game. And this all also depends on which charms you get, its all fun and games getting 3 and 4 ticket charms in your shop when you have only 2 tickets. And then you're like omg, I want that charm because then I can go my strat. But then you don't make the deadline early, so no bonus tickets meaning you struggle the next round too. Oh and then the phone, it probably gives you the wrong buff as well so now you have 4-6 tickets which you might throw away in rerolls meaning you got less to spend on charms which then means unless you're lucky with the ones you already have or just lucky in general you make it and otherwise you lose again. Whole story short, how fun is it to pay more then 10 euro's on a game that often enough wont let you get passed round one? I'm personally playing a game for fun, not to get tortured and forced to keep playing hoping I get lucky. And besides that, you can finish the game in less then 2 hours, the only thing that is left after that is the cards completion on both normal and hard mode, which again, is already stupid and annoying enough on normal let alone on hard. I'm sure you'll reset 80% of your games just because you got unlucky and legit cant do ANYTHING to make it. Clover Pit is more of a ragebait game sometimes then an actual fun game that you can play all day, as you will get annoyed or mad eventually when you realize how badly the odds are stacked against you.

I know it might look odd - "92hrs played at the time of review, and it's not recommended?". Trust me, I really really want to love this game, and theres many parts of it I do love! Still though, I cant recommend it to others. Maybe I'm being overly critical, but it feels too... plain? I was drawn to Clover Pit because of my love for ficitional gambling, crunchy graphics, and macabre themes. I love the aesthetic, the sound design, the graphics, etc. Beautiful. 11/10. The gameplay loop is simple enough and easy to understand, and the universe you're placed in gives you just enough to want to learn Why You're There.
The game gets really tiring really fast, though. I unlocked all the charms and started theorizing what different builds there could be, and theres really only the same few builds... I know, I know - that's kinda how all roguelikes are; "Get these same 6 items and you automatically win the game ggez, go next", but I genuinely didnt feel the need to use the majority of the charms available, and I'd be surprised if you actually could? It felt simultaneously IMPOSSIBLY difficult and INCREDIBLY easy. It all just felt tedious. Either you dont spin enough to get past the first round or you immediately get all the charms you need and you fly through. the majority of the memory card challenges I didnt even have to worry about the challenge rules - I got my Ticket Build, scored 1mil coins, and skipped the last 4 rounds. The devs appear to be aware of this issue, they keep nerfing a bunch of the charms that allow for HighQ runs and added the Hard mode, but its still massively lacking. The most fun I had with the game was trying to get 999runs going, (but thats because I was intentionally throwing winnable runs by NOT selling my soul to Satan lmao), but by the time you actually get the run online, it feels pointless? Like i said earlier, the devs keep nerfing charms that allow you to continue scoring higher numbers, but even when you DO, theres no set goal. It's not satisfying to continue endlessly in the way that Balatro naninf runs are.

TL;Dr of my autistic ramblings. I enjoyed 100%ing it, but a lot of the gameplay was just... tedious. no challenge outside of 999runs & random luck screwing you over round 1. No real replayability outside of 100%. Very little variation. Aesthetic is still 10/10 tho, and i REALLY want to love this game.

Scratches the urge to gamble part of my brain just right