Balatro (video Game)

''Balatro'' is a 2024 poker-themed roguelike deck-building game developed by LocalThunk and published by Playstack. It was released on Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on February 20, 2024, with a port to macOS on March 1. Ports for Android and iOS were released on September 26, 2024. In the game, the player must score a certain number of points by playing poker hands from a starting 52-card deck, with a limited number of hands and discards each round.

The game was developed over a two-and-a-half year period by sole developer LocalThunk, inspired by the card game Big Two and the roguelike video game '' Luck Be a Landlord''. LocalThunk had only seen the game as a side project to put on a résumé, not anticipating the success of the game.

''Balatro'' has received universal acclaim from game critics, selling more than 5 million copies by January 2025. Along with several other awards and nominations, ''Balatro'' was named Game of the Year at the 25th Game Developers Choice Awards and nominated for the top prize at The Game Awards 2024, the 28th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, and the 21st British Academy Games Awards.

Gameplay

Playthrough

''Balatro'' is a singleplayer roguelike deck-building game based on the rules of poker. The player chooses a deck, each with unique effects and cards, before each playthrough or "run". A run is divided into antes, each with three blinds of increasing difficulty. During a "round" against a blind, the player must use their limited number of hands and discards to play poker hands, and attempt to score the required number of chips (points). To defeat blinds more easily, the player may buy various cards which change the rules of the game or provide an advantage. These items are bought in a shop in between rounds.

Blinds

Blinds, the obstacles the player must defeat in Balatro, have three major types: Small Blind, Big Blind, and Boss Blind. Small and Big Blinds can either be skipped or played. When skipping a blind, the player forgoes the normal rewards of defeating the blind and an opportunity to use the shop, but is rewarded with a tag, granting special rewards. Most tags give some benefit upon entering the next shop such as free cards or booster packs, but some effects are instant, or apply when other criteria are met. Each type of Boss Blind has a special ability, such as disabling certain cards or limiting the player's hands or discards. Ante 8 — as well as all antes that are a multiple of 8 — have a "Finisher Blind" in place of a Boss Blind, which selects from one of five special types which do not appear in any other circumstance.

Antes and Rounds

Each ante consists of three rounds, one against a Small Blind, one against a Big Blind, and the final round against a Boss Blind, which allows the player to progress to the next ante. In each round, the player has a limited number of hands within which they must beat a target score, as well as a limited number of discards with which they may replace up to five cards in their hand with different ones. The game ends if the player runs out of hands or cards to play before reaching the target score.

During a round, the player draws playing cards from their deck, initially starting with a standard 52-card deck, while cards can be added, modified, and destroyed throughout the run. The player then selects up to five cards, with the objective of forming poker hands to score points. The hand's base value is calculated and turned into "Chips", which are then multiplied by "Mult", which increases depending on cards, hands, and jokers held by the player. Joker cards affect the game in various ways, such as offering additional Chips or Mult when conditions are met or changing how certain poker hands can be played.

Upon defeating a Blind, the player is awarded with in-game cash ($), and presented with a shop. Here, the player may use their cash to purchase items, such as booster packs, Jokers, and a voucher which grants perks and conditions for the remainder of the run. It is possible to play until ante 39 in endless mode at which point the amount of required chips, stored under double-precision floating-point format, overflows to NaN (a representation of infinity under such number format). Because all numbers (including NaN) will always be compared as '' unordered'' (a relation separate from ''less than'', ''equal to'', or ''greater'') against NaN, the player score cannot be equal to or greater than NaN, causing the game to reach an unwinnable state. While this also makes it possible to score an infinite number of points, it does not allow progression beyond this unwinnable state.

End of a Run

The player wins a run by completing ante 8 — defeating the first Finisher Blind — though the player can continue playing in endless mode. Running out of hands or cards without hitting the score required during a round ends the run. If the player has not completed ante 8 when the game ends, the player has lost. In endless mode, these conditions still cause the game to end, though the player still won by completing ante 8.

Cards

Jokers, special cards which the player holds separately from their deck, are the primary means by which players can alter their scoring in the game, among other effects. The game was released with 150 Joker cards. Many Jokers provide Chips or Mult bonuses based on certain conditions, and some provide Mult multipliers, multiplying the player's Mult. Jokers have a wide range of abilities including rewarding money, creating or duplicating cards, or modifying the player's amount of hands and discards. Jokers often require certain conditions to be met for their abilities to be triggered, or used to their full potential. Jokers can be found with or upgraded to have variants like Foil, Holographic, Polychrome, which affect the player's Chips or Mult, as well as the Negative modifier which grants an additional slot for Joker storage, effectively making the Joker occupy no space. Part of the strategy of ''Balatro'' is filling one's limited Joker slots with Jokers that have interactions with each other and other cards to greatly increase scoring opportunities.

Players can modify their deck of playing cards through various means, which can be used to improve the odds of drawing specific hands, or improve the score output of certain cards. Additional playing cards can be obtained through booster packs at the shop. Existing cards can also be modified, destroyed or copied using Tarot cards and Spectral cards. Utilising these, it is therefore possible to play non-traditional poker hands such as ''Five of a Kind'', ''Flush House'' (full house of all the same suit), and ''Flush Five'' (five of the same suit and rank).

Tarot cards provide various one-time effects, such as changing cards to different playing card suits, enhancing them to provide bonuses when played, or destroying cards. Spectral cards behave similarly, though provide different effects, such as creating copies of a card, applying upgrade variants to Jokers and playing cards, or modifying the player's cash in exchange for a negative or positive effect. Planet cards raise the level of a poker hand, increasing their base Chips and Mult values when played. Each planet card applies to a different hand depending on its type, and upgrades that hand for the duration of the run.

Decks

The deck of playing cards that the player chooses at the beginning of a run also has its own effects; the player starts out with a "starter" series of decks, and completes runs to unlock new ones. Completing runs also unlocks " stakes" for the deck used, which add more difficult conditions to the run. New special cards and vouchers can be unlocked for future runs by meeting certain conditions.

Merchandise

A deck of physical playing cards is available for US$16. The deck includes the standard 52 playing cards printed in the style of ''Balatro'', as well as 4 of the custom Jokers: Joker, Juggler, Blueprint, and Gros Michel. Each card features the art from the game. Various t-shirts were created around the mascot Jimbo and various other cards.

Development

''Balatro'' was developed by LocalThunk, an anonymous solo developer based in Saskatchewan, Canada. In an interview, he said that he mostly plays online competitive games, and that he ponders roguelike games more than actually playing them. Despite the game's theme, LocalThunk said he does not play poker, nor does he want the game to be used for gambling by casinos and players.

Development began in 2021, two-and-a-half years before release, initially intended to be one of several small games that were shared with friends. The initial idea was an online version of the Cantonese card game Big Two, which has players playing a number of cards to create poker-like hands. After seeing the number of roguelike deckbuilders on Steam, and watching a Twitch stream of Northernlion playing '' Luck Be a Landlord'', a slot machine-themed roguelike, he was inspired to turn his Big Two clone into a singleplayer roguelike deckbuilder without online play. According to LocalThunk, he avoided playing deckbuilders to avoid taking ideas from these games, and had only played '' Slay the Spire'' near the end of development to understand how it implemented its control scheme. He at one point considered the name ''Joker Poker'' for the game, before settling on Balatro, a professional jester or buffoon.

On using the standard 52 playing card deck as a base LocalThunk said, "it’s this shared cultural game design tool that has evolved over hundreds of years", and on the game's success was quoted as being partly "because you're borrowing from this really tried-and-true tool."

The soundtrack for Balatro was written and produced by LouisF, a freelance Fiverr artist. The composer was contacted in March 2023, and the music was released the same month. In his published timeline of the game's production, LocalThunk noted that it was the only money that he planned to spend during the development of Balatro.

A very early version of the game was circulated among his friends, who gave positive reviews after months of playing. About a year prior to release, LocalThunk quit his day job to focus on finishing ''Balatro'' "to put on a résumé". He signed a publishing contract with PlayStack, and with their help developed a launch campaign around beta releases and promotion via major video game streamers. LocalThunk used player feedback from the betas for additional features in the final version of the game, including the addition of boss battles.

Balatro was programmed in Lua with the Löve game framework. LocalThunk's pseudonym derives from the keyword "local" used to define variables and "Thunk", a common variable name in his partner's projects.

Release

In 2023, prior to release, the game became available as a demo. It was removed by LocalThunk on January 1 2024, and was brought back on January 25, with the new version containing 40 new Jokers, new bosses, and booster packs. The new version was uploaded alongside a new trailer and a release date for the full version of the game, February 20 2024. In April 2024, the game was made easier with an experimental balance patch, 1.0.1c.

Shortly after the game's release, ''Balatro''s PEGI rating was changed from 3+ to 18+ for "prominent gambling imagery" due to PEGI's strict rules on portraying gambling, causing the game to be temporarily removed from sale in certain territories. Publisher Playstack stated that they had discussed the game's content with PEGI prior to release (causing its initial 18+ rating to be lowered to 3+) and that, while being based on poker, the game does not portray any form of gambling, and intended to appeal the re-rating. LocalThunk criticised the rating change saying, "Maybe I should add microtransactions/ loot boxes/real gambling to lower that rating to 3+ like ''EA Sports FC''". The rating was successfully appealed in February 2025, and along with ''Luck be a Landlord'', ''Balatro'' was reclassified with a 12+ rating, recognizing that the fantasy elements of the game distinguished it from gambling. PEGI has stated they will introduce more granular classification rules for future games involving gambling-like elements. After YouTube changed its policies in March 2025, many ''Balatro'' videos were marked as 18+ for "depictions or promotions of online casino sites or apps", blocking these videos from child YouTube accounts.

Four free "Friends of Jimbo" updates, adding interchangeable cosmetic packs featuring crossovers with other video games, were released on August 27, October 24, December 12, 2024 and February 24, 2025 respectively. The first update features crossovers with ''The Witcher 3'', '' Vampire Survivors'', '' Dave the Diver'' and '' Among Us'', the second update features crossovers with ''Cyberpunk 2077'', '' The Binding of Isaac'', '' Slay the Spire'' and ''Stardew Valley'', the third update features crossovers with '' Divinity: Original Sin II'', ''Shovel Knight'', ''Potion Craft'', '' Enter the Gungeon'', '' Cult of the Lamb'', '' Don't Starve'', '' 1000xResist'' and ''Warframe'', and the fourth update features crossovers with ''Critical Role'', '' Bugsnax'', '' Sid Meier's Civilization VII'', ''Rust'', ''Assassin's Creed'', ''Slay the Princess'', ''Dead by Daylight'' and ''Fallout''.

Additionally, content based on ''Balatro'' was added to ''Dave the Diver'' via a free update released on October 24, 2024. A large update to ''Cyberpunk 2077'' in December 2024 added a ''Balatro''-themed quest. LocalThunk and Playstack confirmed plans for ports to Android and iOS mobile devices in March 2024. The ports were released on September 26, 2024, including a ''Balatro+'' version for Apple Arcade. The ports grossed $1 million in a week and $4.4 million in 2 months. A physical deck of playing cards using ''Balatro'' pixel graphic arts, produced by Fangamer, has also been released.

Reception

''Balatro'' has received "universal acclaim" according to review aggregator website Metacritic. OpenCritic, another aggregator, said that 100% of critics recommend the game.

The game's playability has received praise from critics. Simon Cardy from ''IGN'' described it as "ludicrously fun" and "remarkably approachable," while Jordan Helm from '' Hardcore Gamer'' called it "addictive" and "expertly-crafted". Charlie Brooker, the creator of ''Black Mirror'', called it "possibly the most addictive thing ever created" and that once it was released for mobile devices, "humankind's activity is going to drop about 25%"; ''Balatro'' was subsequently briefly shown in the " Hotel Reverie" episode of ''Black Mirror'' seventh season, released in April 2025. Writing for ''The Guardian'', Keza MacDonald stated that "''Balatro'' might be the best card game you will ever come across".

In addition, the game's roguelike elements have received positive reviews. Abbie Stone from ''PC Gamer'' described gameplay as "strategizing your way to success," and Alessandro Barbosa from ''GameSpot'' called each run "surprisingly fresh." Chris Allnutt writing in ''Financial Times'' praised the "wonderfully retro VCR-style visuals, lo-fi music and irreverent sound effects."

With the success of ''Balatro'', LocalThunk kept to a low profile, not wanting much attention on their real-world identity and avoiding the stress that would come with it. They have also used the attention drawn to ''Balatro'' to highlight other indie titles released near the same time, including naming '' Animal Well'', '' Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers'', ''Arco'', '' Nova Drift'', '' Ballionaire'', and '' Mouthwashing'' for their "Golden Thunk Awards". While LocalThunk and his partner had been present at the Game Awards, he told no one else who they were, and opted to allow representatives from PlayStack to accept the awards ''Balatro'' won on his behalf. A similar arrangement was made for the Game Developers Choice Awards, with PlayStack representatives accepting the awards for ''Balatro'' while LocalThunk remained anonymous at the event. For the 21st British Academy Games Awards, LocalThunk was able to send actor Ben Starr, previously having played Jimbo the joker for live-action videos for the game, to accept his award.

Following its popularity, the game has inspired significant activity from the player community, including memes, the integration of other games within it, and an unofficial port to the Apple Watch developed in January 2025, called ''Wee Balatro'', which is awaiting the author’s approval.

Sales

Within eight hours of release, the game had made over in gross revenue according to publisher Playstack. Over one million copies were sold within the first month. By January 2025, the game had surpassed 5 million copies, with around half of those coming after the mobile releases in September 2024, and does not account for those playing the game for free through Apple Arcade.

Accolades

''Balatro'' received nominations for multiple accolades. In 2024 it won Golden Joystick Awards' "Best Indie Game" and "Breakthrough" awards. At The Game Awards 2024, it won "Best Independent Game", "Best Debut Indie Game", and "Best Mobile Game"; it was also nominated for "Game of the Year", the first time a solo game project was nominated for the top honor. It also received awards from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences for " Outstanding Achievement for an Independent Game", " Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year", and " Mobile Game of the Year" at the 28th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards.

Notes

References

External links

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2024 video games
Android (operating system) games
British Academy Games Award for Debut Game winners
Digital deck-building card games
Game Developers Choice Award for Game of the Year winners
Golden Joystick Award winners
Indie games
IOS games
Lua (programming language)-scripted video games
MacOS games
Nintendo Switch games
Playstack games
PlayStation 4 games
PlayStation 5 games
Poker video games
Roguelike video games
Single-player video games
The Game Awards winners
Video games developed in Canada
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