Nubby’s Number Factory is like Balatro if it were a plinko roguelike and instead of Jokers had items like Squirmy, Pedro, and A Ton of Feathers

I have but a simple brain. Some people turn to games like Blue Prince to engage their minds in a thoughtful and complex exercise. But not me. Instead, I’ve been spending my precious time and brain power playing Nubby’s Number Factory.

Nubby’s Number Factory is a plinko-style roguelike which has you working at a number factory alongside your spherical friend Nubby (the plinko ball). Together, you need to pop the pegs, which are all worth different amounts, and earn points to meet the quota for each round. Oh, and if you fail to do so, the sun will explode, no pressure.

With the solar system’s fate in my hands, I stepped up to the task of Nubby’s Number Factory. So there I was, slinging Nubby like a pro, calculating angles that I hadn’t thought about since Maths GCSE, and overall just being really cool. But unfortunately, being cool didn’t make up for my astounding inability to actually hit anything, so after a couple of rounds, the sun exploded and I evaporated into dust.

I may not learn very fast or be good at coordination, but I’m stubborn as all hell, so without missing a beat, I jumped back in, determined to polish up my Nubby skills.

This time, I actually decided to do some more reading around what’s on offer to help achieve the quota. After a couple of rounds, a shop will pop up with four items available to buy. There’s a vial underneath the quota which fills up every time you score points. You earn money if you manage to exceed the quota and fill up the vial.

There are seven available slots for items, and the first four you get as freebies; the others you have to unlock with money. But unlocking these slots is well worth it, not just because the items are incredibly helpful but also because they’re wonderfully weird. Some of my favourites include the following:

• Uranium Rod: Emits a burst of nuclear waste that pops any peg it touches.
• Pedro: A lil worm guy that pops a random peg each round.
• Squirmy: Gives 5+ points for every item and 1/50 chance to metamorphosize??
• Jake the Snake: 1/4 chance to temporarily double the number on all pegs.
• One Ton of Feathers: Pops the lowest number peg two times.
• Tart Lard: Pops a random peg and gives double points.
• Monstrosity: Summons a meat orb that’ll float around and pop pegs.

One of the best moments was when my Squirmy actually transformed into a Flutty, a beautiful butterfly that gives three points for every time an item is activated in a round. Now that didn’t necessarily help me much, but I was still psyched that I got the 1/50 chance.

There are also perks that will pop up at random throughout the run. The game gives you the option to pick one out of two perks, each with varying levels of rarity. The most helpful one that I’ve found so far is The Strange Perk, which bonus-activates a random item in my inventory every 1.5 seconds. But there are plenty of fun options like The Greedy Perk, The Cubey Perk, and who could forget The Zombie Perk.

But that’s not all, there’s also Special Rounds which pop up every now and then. Now, while in my experience these are mostly helpful, adding a couple of pegs that’ll give you money when popped or multiply your total points by 1.5x, there is one scenario which is a real gut punch.

At one point, the stars aligned, I was sinking shots, and the numbers were rolling in; Nubby and I were living the high life. We got all the way up to level 31, which may not seem like much, but it was still an achievement I was proud of. Everything was going well until a Special Round rolled in and added two pegs that would subtract points every time it was hit. By this point, I had so many items that would randomly pop pegs that no matter how well I tried to angle Nubby, there was no avoiding hitting the evil pegs. I was destroyed, and the sun exploded, again.

Nubby’s Number Factory is similar to Balatro in its items, quotas, perks, and obviously, as it’s a roguelike. But it’s most similar to me in that, although I started off slightly cold with each of these games, once it clicked and I figured out how to do well, I found it impossible to turn either game off. I’ve already sunk a lot of time into Nubby’s Number Factory, and I fear that it’s going to pull a Balatro and take over most of my spare time from here on out.