New Ballbylon
New Ballbylon is your city, and everything you build there gives permanent upgrades that carry into every future run. You get one free harvest per completed run, win or lose, with extras sold by the Spa, so base layout controls your income. Prioritize Gold Mines above all other extraction nodes, because almost every building costs gold.
New Ballbylon is your city. Everything you build here gives you permanent upgrades that carry into every future run. The game does not explain how the harvesting system works, what buildings to prioritize, or how the Market economy breaks at scale. This guide does.
How Harvesting Works
After every run (win or lose), you get one harvest. You launch worker balls into your base layout, and they bounce off buildings to extract resources. You only get one launch angle per harvest, so your base layout matters.
Three things control how much you get per harvest:
- Worker count: More workers means more bounces. Build housing to increase this number.
- Speed phase: Workers change color as they speed up (normal, then orange, then red). Faster workers extract more per bounce.
- Collision volume: The total number of times workers hit resource buildings in a single harvest. This is where layout engineering pays off.
You get one free harvest per completed run, regardless of whether you won or lost, and the Spa building sells additional harvests for escalating gold. Short, failed runs still pay out. Never skip the base phase.
Building Categories
Extraction Nodes
These are your primary resource generators. Workers bounce off them to collect materials.
| Building | Resource | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Gold Mine | Gold | Your most important resource. Most buildings cost gold. |
| Farm | Wheat | Needed for housing and some utility buildings. |
| Lumberyard | Wood | Needed for early-game structures. |
| Stone Mine | Stone | Needed for late-game structures and Market arbitrage. |
Upgrading extraction nodes increases the amount of resources you get per worker bounce. Prioritize Gold Mines above everything else.
Character Housing
Each playable character has a matching housing structure. Build it in New Ballbylon to unlock that character for runs.
| Housing | Character Unlocked | Biome Blueprint Source |
|---|---|---|
| Sheriff's Office | The Itchy Finger | BONExYARD |
| Haunted House | The Repentant | BONExYARD |
| Cozy Home | The Cohabitants | BONExYARD |
| Veteran's Hut | The Embedded | SNOWYxSHORES |
| Villa | The Cogitator | SNOWYxSHORES |
| Single-Family Home | The Empty Nester | SNOWYxSHORES |
| Mausoleum | The Shade | LIMINALxDESERT |
| Mansion | The Spendthrift | FUNGALxFOREST |
| Iron Fortress | The Shieldbearer | FUNGALxFOREST |
| Laboratory | The Physicist | FUNGALxFOREST |
| Monastery | The Flagellant | GORYxGRASSLANDS |
| Theatre | The Juggler | GORYxGRASSLANDS |
| Rocky Hill | The Makeshift Sisyphus | LIMINALxDESERT |
| Captain's Quarters | The Tactician | SMOLDERINGxDEPTHS |
| Campground | The Radical | HEAVENLYxGATES |
| Falconry Hut | The Falconer | HEAVENLYxGATES |
| Party House | The Carouser | VASTxVOID |
| Stone Domain | The Tunneller | SMOLDERINGxDEPTHS |
| Hidden Temple | The Tiptoer | SMOLDERINGxDEPTHS |
| Ball House | The Ballbearer | VASTxVOID |
| Unstable Tower | The Hoary Hoarder | HEAVENLYxGATES |
The Mansion has a unique perk: at Level 3 it passively generates 1 Gold per minute for every nearby building, even while you idle. Pack its district tight and the drip adds up.
Infinite Stat Buildings
These are the endgame buildings. They can be upgraded forever, and each level gives a permanent attribute point to every character.
| Building | Attribute Boosted |
|---|---|
| Hospital | Endurance (HP) |
| Warrior's Guild | Strength (Damage) |
| Capitolium | Leadership (Baby balls) |
| Wagon Factory | Speed |
| Marksman's Guild | Dexterity |
| Grand Museum | Intelligence |
The catch: costs climb steeply, with each building drawing on its own resource mix (the Hospital's level 13 upgrade already wants 10,800 Wheat and 3,600 Wood). Each upgrade also requires filling a construction gauge whose build-point cost caps at 1,050 worker bounces.
Proximity Buffers
These buildings boost everything near them. Placement matters.
- Captain's Quarters: Adds +1 to the stats of intersecting stat buildings. Put it next to your infinite stat buildings.
- Iron Fortress: At Level 3, bounces on it apply +4 build points to all nearby scaffolds. This means you finish construction faster on everything around it.
Utility Buildings
| Building | What It Does |
|---|---|
| Casino | Reduces the resource cost of level-up rerolls during runs, from 20% at Level 1 up to 60% at Level 3. |
| Abbey | Bonus to all XP gained during runs, from 5% at Level 1 up to 15% at Level 3. |
| Necromancer | Gives you one revive per run, at 25% HP at Level 1 and up to 75% at Level 3, killing nearby enemies as you rise. |
| Jeweler | Your starting ball begins at Level 2 instead of Level 1. Saves an entire Fission step. |
| Gemsmith | At the start of each run, you get to pick an extra ball immediately. |
| Guild Hall | Added in the Shadow Update. Lets you re-roll characters' harvest upgrades. |
| Market | Lets you buy and sell resources at exchange rates. |
Trophies
Trophies are special structures you build after clearing biome bosses. They grant scaling stat boosts (HP, ball speed) based on how many unique characters have cleared that biome. The more characters you clear with, the bigger the bonus.
Resource Economics
Gold First
Gold should dominate your layout, because almost everything costs gold and the Market converts gold into whatever else you need. Wheat, wood, and stone extraction only need to keep pace with your current construction plans.
Market Exchange Rates
The Market building lets you sell and buy resources. Here is what makes it powerful:
- Hold Shift to sell in large batches, up to 10,000 at a time.
- At the maximum rate, Stone sells for 40 Gold each (10,000 Stone is roughly 400,000 Gold), Wood for 10 Gold, and Wheat for 4 Gold.
The exchange rate crashes immediately after a bulk sale and recovers over time (Stone climbs back at about 3 Gold per run, so a full reset takes roughly 13 runs). Do not sell everything at once unless you need a specific amount of gold right now.
The Arbitrage Strategy
The Market's sell rates for Stone and Wood sit high enough relative to their extraction value that some players skip balanced extraction entirely. Instead:
- Focus your entire base layout on Stone and Wood extraction.
- Stockpile until you have 10,000+ of each.
- Bulk sell everything into Gold.
- Use gold to buy back the small amounts of Wheat and Lumber you actually need.
This produces more Gold per hour than pure Gold extraction, but it requires patience across the roughly 13-run recovery window between bulk sale cycles.
The Gold Mine Corridor Layout
This is the community-optimized base topology for maximum gold per harvest.
How It Works
The goal is to force your workers into a narrow corridor lined with Gold Mines, so nearly every bounce hits a gold source. Wall the corridor with other buildings so workers ricochet between mines instead of escaping into open ground. Documented corridor builds run either 7 mines (2,500 to 3,100 Gold per harvest) or a longer 12-mine version (3,000 to 3,500 Gold).
Expected Returns
A tuned corridor produces roughly 2,500 to 3,500 Gold per free harvest depending on mine count and worker roster. If you buy extra harvests from the Spa, weigh the escalating price against your corridor's per-harvest yield.
Stat Building Placement
Place your six infinite stat buildings at the end of the gold corridor, right next to the Iron Fortress. The Iron Fortress gives +4 bounce points to everything nearby. Combined with the high worker traffic from the gold corridor, this setup fills the 1,050-bounce construction gauge in a single harvest phase.
Build the Captain's Quarters adjacent to your stat buildings for an extra +1 multiplier per upgrade. Combined with the Iron Fortress placement, this is the fastest way to push permanent stats.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does harvesting work in New Ballbylon?
After every run you get one harvest, and you launch worker balls into your base using a single launch angle. Workers bounce off buildings to extract resources. Your yield depends on worker count, the speed phase the workers reach, and the total collision volume against resource buildings.
Do you still get a harvest if you lose a run in Ball x Pit?
Yes. You get one free harvest per completed run regardless of whether you won or lost, so even short failed runs still pay out, and the Spa building sells additional harvests for escalating gold. Never skip the base phase.
What resource should a Ball x Pit base prioritize?
Gold, overwhelmingly. Almost everything costs gold and the Market converts gold into whatever else you need, so wheat, wood, and stone extraction only need to keep pace with your current construction plans.
What is the Gold Mine corridor layout?
It is the community-optimized base topology that traps workers in a narrow corridor lined with Gold Mines so nearly every bounce hits a gold source. Documented builds run 7 mines for 2,500 to 3,100 Gold per harvest or a 12-mine version for 3,000 to 3,500.
How does the Market arbitrage strategy work?
Focus your layout on Stone and Wood, stockpile 10,000 or more of each, then bulk sell into Gold. At the maximum rate 10,000 Stone sells for roughly 400,000 Gold and 10,000 Wood for roughly 100,000. The rate crashes after a bulk sale and recovers over about 13 runs, so this cycle needs patience.
What to Read Next
- Fast-Clear Builds. What the harvest economy funds.
- Characters. Unlocking roster slots through the town.
- Achievements. Building and harvesting milestones.
- Tips and Tricks. Free harvests, the gold corridor, and how the resource market recovers.