Balatro (video game)

Balatro is a poker-themed roguelike deck-building video game developed by LocalThunk and published by Playstack. It was released on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch on February 20, 2024, with a port to macOS on March 1. Ports for Android and iOS are planned. In the game, players play poker hands to score points and defeat "blinds", while improving their deck and purchasing joker cards with a variety of effects. The game was a critical and commercial success.

Basic rules
Balatro is a poker-themed roguelike deck-building video game, with the aim being to win a run of all 8 "antes" — a group of three rounds of poker — by scoring enough chips (points) earned though playing high-scoring hands. The player can improve their deck with various items which change the rules of the game. These items are bought in a shop in between rounds. As with other games in the roguelike genre, the player wins through a mix of "strategy, risk and reward, and a bit of luck."

As with regular poker, out of a 52-card deck, up to five cards can be played, and the player can remove cards and subsequently take new ones to build different hands. The cards in a deck are split into four suits: clubs (♣), diamonds ( ♦), hearts ( ♥) , and spades (♠). The hands available to make are high card, pair, three of a kind, four of a kind, two pair, straight, full house, flush, and straight flush; these are combinations of suits, numbered cards, and face cards (those with kings, queens, or jacks on them). Full house, straight, flush, and straight flush have higher scores than the other hands. The game includes an illustrated glossary of the different hands.

The three rounds in an ante are "blinds": a "Small Blind", "Big Blind", and "Boss Blind"; each blind has a target score to beat, which the player must reach by playing hands from a deck, having a set amount of hands and discards at their disposal. Each Boss Blind has its own unique challenge that makes the game more difficult, such as The Needle, which only lets you play one hand that round. Once a Blind has been defeated, the player gets income depending on how many hands they have left as well as interest before being able to access the shop, where the player purchases items. The Small and Big Blinds can be skipped, and each skip comes with a "Tag" that has its own ability. Skipping a blind does not mean the player can revisit the shop or earn the points they would have gotten from the round.

After the player wins 24 rounds, completing a run, they can continue the game in an endless mode where they see how many points they can get. The types of card decks that the player chooses at the beginning of a run also have their own effects; the player starts out with a "starter" series of decks, and completing runs can unlock new ones. Runs also have different difficulty modes known as "stakes".

Shop items
At the shop, the player may purchase various types of special cards and vouchers. These items have effects that change the rules of the game only for the specific run the player is in. Joker cards grant unique bonuses which activate under specific conditions, often increasing the score of the player's hand or generating more money and cards. One example is a Joker which boosts the score of a hand if certain cards in it follow the fibonacci sequence, meaning the cards numbered 2, 3, 5, 8, and the ace. Jokers can often influence the player to choose different types of hands, such as if they get the card that gives more points for hands with only face cards. Another Joker increases the number of cards that the player can build hands from. There are over 100 Jokers, and the player can equip five at a time.

Vouchers also add new conditions to the game. In addition, there are card packs containing Tarot and Planet cards. Tarot cards contain one-time effects, like changing cards' suits. Planet cards increase the chip value and multipliers of hands, and the values can be increased multiple times in a run. New special cards and vouchers are unlocked over time. Booster packs are also available, which provide a random assortment of basic cards. However, those cards may come with effects like giving the player money when they are played. Cards can be sold, and in one case, a specific Joker being sold removes a boss' unique ability.

Development and release
The one-person developer LocalThunk is based in Canada. LocalThunk had developed Balatro over the two-and-a-half years prior to release, one of several small games he had developed over the previous ten years and shared with friends. Development had started based on an idea of the Cantonese card game Big Two, which has players playing a number of cards to create poker-like hands, while adding elements to play it online. He then saw the number of roguelike deckbuilders on Steam, and while he didn't play, he looked at videos of Luck Be a Landlord, a roguelike built around a slot machine concept in which the player has limited spins to reach a target value on each round. He was inspired to transition his Big Two approach to be a single-player roguelike deckbuilder, removing the online play, and consciously avoiding playing any of the other deckbuilders to avoid taking ideas from these games. He had only played Slay the Spire near the end of development to understand how that game implemented its control scheme. He at one point considered the name Joker Poker for the game.

About a year prior to release, LocalThunk quit his day job to focus on finishing Balatro "to put on a resume." He uploaded an early build to Steam, which eventually led to major streamers playing the game and providing pre-release publicity. As a result of this publicity, LocalThunk incorporated some player feedback into the final version of the game, such as adding boss battles, though he also rejected many ideas. 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, the new version containing 40 new Jokers, new bosses, and the ability to buy booster packs. The new version was uploaded alongside a new trailer and a release date for the full version of the game, February 20. 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 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 and Playstack have confirmed plans for ports to Android and iOS mobile devices.

Reception
Balatro has received "universal acclaim", according to Metacritic.

Alex Orona from Nintendo World Report called it "a smart game" with "deep mechanics" and "fast paced". Jordan Helm from Hardcore Gamer called it "addictive" and "expertly-crafted".

Within eight hours of release, the game had made over $1 million in gross revenue according to publisher Playstack, their fastest-selling game to date. Over 250,000 copies were sold in the first three days, 500,000 copies in the first ten days. and one million within the first month.