Balatro [PS, XB, PC, NX] - a Roguelike deck builder game

[Cyan]

Another unexpected hit. 500000 copies sold in 10 days. It's also getting goty-worthy review scores.

'I don't play poker at all' says solo developer who made the poker roguelike I can't stop playing

Developer LocalThunk says his deckbuilder, Balatro, is actually based on a game called Big Two, not poker.

www.pcgamer.com

Balatro

Balatro is a deck-building roguelite where you must play poker hands and earn chips to defeat enemy blinds. Enhance your deck of playing cards, buy Jokers to modify each hand you play, and discover new and wild synergies to win!

www.playbalatro.com

Balatro on Steam

The poker roguelike. Balatro is a hypnotically satisfying deckbuilder where you play illegal poker hands, discover game-changing jokers, and trigger adrenaline-pumping, outrageous combos.

store.steampowered.com

 

[Cyan]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1765366560808378483

I know a little of poker, not much tbh. My father had poker cards but I barely played them.

 

[Cyan]

Basic rules, from what I read, as I understand them.

It's a poker game where there is a target in points that must be achieved.
Points are earned by making winning hands on the drawn random cards.

For example: pair of 5, points, trio of 5, more points. When the target points are achieved, you move to the next level with more target points to achieve.
OK. So far, easy to explain.
But the game goes much further.

To begin with, we have a limit of hands to play.
We must reach the target points by playing 4 hands. If we don't reach the points in 4 hands, it's over.
We can also discard cards so that new cards appear that may interest us more to make winning hands. Discards are also limited to 4.

And now the big part of the game, the craziness. The enhancers, the tarots, jokers, wild cards....

As you advance, the goal in points increases so much that it is impossible to reach it with winning hands (no matter how good they are, it is unattainable)
And that's where the power-ups come into play.

Between rounds, they give us the chance to buy special cards that boost our winning hands.
For example, point multiplier if we make hands with hearts, with pairs, double pairs, etc...

Therefore, it is essential that between round and round, we strengthen our deck of "multipliers" to get more and more points with our hands.

The amount of "wild" cards or point "boosters" is crazy.

They say it is so engaging, it can become the doom bringer of your social life.

 

[Malo]

Cyan, could I ask that you keep your thread subjects more concise? Most of what you type in the subjects is post content. For this particular thread, perhaps simply

Balatro (PS/PC/NS/Xbox) - A roguelike poker game​

 

[Cyan]

Cyan, could I ask that you keep your thread subjects more concise? Most of what you type in the subjects is post content. For this particular thread, perhaps simply

Balatro (PS/PC/NS/Xbox) - A roguelike poker game​

Done. Sounds reasonable.

 

[Cyan]

this reminds me of my first computer and Doom where I used Notepad to transform a .wad file from the shareware version into the full version, just switching the letter i from iwad to p to create pwad -irrc- to the wad at the very start of the file's content, which was mostly a "mess" of ascii characters, and it let you play the full version of Doom in the shareware version. I have fuzzy memories of that, but it was my first kinda successful attempt at trying to hack something.

Using Wordpad didn't let you achieve that, but Notepad did.

Balatro's first demo could be edited with Notepad to unlock the whole game—the solution? 'Bury it as soon as possible' with a 'newer, shinier version'​

Balatro's first demo could be edited with Notepad to unlock the whole game—the solution? 'Bury it as soon as possible' with a 'newer, shinier version'

"It was very important to do that quick."

www.pcgamer.com

 

[Johnny Awesome]

I thought it was pretty dumb that this game didn't have touch controls on xCloud.