Balatro

I am finally breaking my silence to scream about Balatro.

wikipedia

Poker. Roguelike. Thanks for reading, see you all soon.

~roll credits~

{deckbuilder}

Bolatro markets itself as hypnoticly addictive deck building roguelite about playing illegal hands of poker. You begin by drawing a hand of 8 cards from a deck of 52. You choose which cards to discard and which poker hands to play. You have about 4 discards and 4 hands in which you must achieve a score of 300 chips to advance. You gain chips depending on the hand you play and the score of the cards within that hand. Generally a house will get you passed the first round so you’ll discard until you achieve a house. With each remaining hand you didn’t play you score a dollar. You score some dollars for winning. You gain interest with each 5 dollars you possess up to 25 dollars. You spend dollars in between rounds in the shop.

The shop offers cards to modify your deck for breaking poker’s rules. Tarot cards alter your playing cards. Eliminate playing cards. Create additional playing cards. Give more money. The alterations are numerous. I love the Hermit card which gives you double your current money up to 20 dollars. I tend to change the suit of as many cards as I can for flush hands. Then there’s planet cards which will alter the score you receive on hand types. I like to level up my houses and my flush hands but also my pairs in case I get really screwed. You get playing cards from booster packs which also provide planet and tarot cards depending on the booster pack. Some playing cards received via booster packs may come pre-altered. And these alterations provide improved scoring opportunities as well as money.

If you don’t know the difference between a flush or a house you may access a convenient menu displaying hand composition. The hierarchy of hands. The frequency of played hands. And the upgraded level of each hand. All vital information for success.

Joker cards make or break the player’s run. Jokers alter gameplay and form the basis of your build. Jokers may increase points for each club card in a hand. Or provide money for each face card not utilized in scoring. In general you’re working to create synergy within your build. Maybe you want to focus on the heart suit combined with flush hands to create extra multipliers. You choose Jokers that give extra points for odd numbered cards. For even numbered cards. And cards of a specific type. Providing situations where every hand you play triggers multipliers boosting the potential of each scoring hand knocking the goal out into the milky way galaxy.

Each round demands higher scores. Each third round acts as a boss fight challenging you in multiple ways. These are called antes. You may find all your spades have been debuffed to 0. Or maybe all your hands draw facing down after playing a hand, creating far more risk in your decision making. The hardest ante I have experienced reduces hands to one. I ended many runs failing to raise 40,000 points with just one hand. Until eventually I constructed a line of Jokers that multiplied my hands far passed 40,000 points. I gained reward feeling as though I’d completely smashed a seemingly impossible challenge. And I learned how to better construct my strategy around my Jokers and around which hands I need to play. Discarding until I find my favorable hand.

An interesting gamble as if I burn through my discards I might wind up with a situation where I’m looking at terrible hands and an end state for my run. Massaging your deck relieves this tension in favor of creating preferable situations. As well as strategizing around more than one hand.

Defeating 8 rounds of 3 is considered a win. Players may stop or continue onto Endless Mode. Endless requires scores easily passed one million and onward. Only the best decks shall survive.

Satisfying certain goals produce further unlocks to add to subsequent runs. Like extra Joker cards or deck types. You begin with two deck types. As you play more become available. Winning with one deck unlocks another. My favorite deck is yellow. Runs begin with extra money birthing a flexibility I appreciate as I learn the best strategies. I’ve won twice (three times) with the yellow deck (since writing I’ve won once with the red deck and once with the blue deck). I’ve lost hundreds of times. Each attempt ends and another begins. On and On. Forever.

Balatro burns time. It’s been a while since warped to 1:00 AM. Its turn based nature lends itself to second screen play while watching content. Which inspires my seal of approval. The advertised hypnotic nature often creates situations of total focus eliminating whatever I tried to multitask on in the background from my consciousness. I must insure the background content feels more hangoutable. A playthrough or stream. Maybe even professional wrestling. Balatro is the perfect game for playing during professional wrestling.

The game possesses enough tools to rip apart balance in one’s favor. Enough challenge to stoke the coals in your gaming oven. Enough checks and balances to forgive challenge and conclude fairly. I always wanted to get this deep into poker but I always hated gambling. And playing cards are dumb. Just look at them. You can’t even play a five of a kind in real poker. That’s barbaric. In this single player version of poker I’m not crying. I’m screaming. There are little Jokermen who wear funny costumes with silly hats. There’s a loop of music that’ll enter your bloodstream and infect your dreams with a sickness. You’ll be standing on the slow hours of your work clock watching Northernlion videos on your phone. It’s a fun obsession.

The flutter of cards. The slot machine effects as numbers go up. The flow of money from round to round. The possibility of mutations that drastically alter the player’s strategy. I fell in love with Slay the Spire. I enjoyed a little Monster Train. I sunk into the cozy world of Dicey Dungeons on my Switch. Nothing from any of these games approaches the kind of good brain juice afforded by Balatro. You can play this game sober or drunk. But never tripping. Because that 8 is made of glass and soon as it shatters, it’s gone forever. Just like our fragile vitality, man.

Stop playing Final Fantasy 7. Stop playing Palworld. Take a break from Tekken. Like a Dragon. And Helldivers 2. And don’t even look at Lethal Company ever again. Play this game. This one. Right Here.

Or don’t. I’m just an idiot on a keyboard giving myself permission to like things.

Why don’t you do that? Like things? It’s okay to like things. You don’t have to be constantly engaged in discourse to like things. You could simply like things in private the way we did as children in the 90s. WHEN I WAS A KID I HAD A NINTENDO. AND I PLAYED MY NINTENDO WITHOUT SCREAMING ABOUT IT ON TWITTER.

Before you play this though you better play Prince of Persia The Lost Crown.

Ranking.

1. Dead Cells
2. Hades
3. Enter the Gungeon
4. Risk of Rain (Returns)
5. Rogue Legacy 1 (2)
6. Synthetik
7. Balatro
8. Nuclear Throne
9. Binding of Isaac
10. DOOM RL
11. Spelunky 1 (2)
12. Slay the Spire
13. FTL
14. Children of Morta
15. Astral Ascent
16. Noita
17. Dicey Dungeons
18. Crypt of the Necrodancer
19. Moonlighter
20. Cult of the Lamb
21. Heat Signature
22. Darkest Dungeon
23. Risk of Rain 2
24. 868-Hack
25. Jupiter Hell
26. Go Mecha Ball
27. Backpack Hero
28. Scourge Bringer
29. Inscryption
30. Wizard of Legend
31. Monster Train
32. Downwell
33. Cogmind
34. 20xx
35. Nightmare Reaper
36. Unexpl;ored
37. Dungeons of Dredmor
38. Invisible Inc
39. NeuroVoider
40. Atomicrops
41. Flint Hook
42. Endless Dungeon
43. Dragon Crystal
44. Ziggurat
45. Tower of Guns
46. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon
47. Brut@l
48. The Legend of Bumbo

~

Careful readers of these documents may understand this list to be different. The industry of video game is one of redundancy. Sequels. Remakes. Remasters. Reprints. Go ahead and think of this list as a remaster. You have my permission. I conjured this list in silence. You must think of it as law. From my finger tips to your eye balls.

Balatro shrouds the player in chemical pleasure. March down to Kmart. Become one with your local drug trade. Settle down for a life as a drifter. Else you’ll never survive.
As a Roguelike Balatro offers incredible heights for the genre. Its juicy presentation brings you to court. Its spicy game feel conditions your hunger. Its randomization wire taps your brain.
Just another bowl of slop for Richter. Please!

~Rougelike~

Balatro drips in juice. Delicious to eyeballs of all sizes. Delectable to the drum of ear. If “poker roguelike” doesn’t spark interest perhaps seeing footage will inflame your esophagus. Those burps. They are permanent. I hope you like Tums. You’ll need a solid pound of tums after this spicy curry of digital entertainment. Especially as foil cards appear. Their glow reminiscent of ripping boosters as a youth. These playing cards are lethal. More dangerous than the fire lizard and lightning mouse. Balatro is a quicksand of your time. The more you struggle. The faster you sink.

I decided after listening to a Giant Bombcast episode in January that Jan’s descriptions of Balatro sounded appealing. I realized it would release soon. In February. That the Nintendo Switch would receive a port. So instead I bought a Steam Deck. I am typing this blog post on my Steam Deck. My first download was the Balatro demo. I fell in head first and drowned. I love my Steam Deck and all its capabilities. Plus the rest of my Steam catalog I finally get to play once again. Plus all the little indies I couldn’t play when I was without a PC. I love that I can type again. Balatro stands above all of these tasks as the one piece of my experience alone that has made owning a Steam Deck worth it. Just for the experience of playing this game. It is that Hades. That Vampire Survivors that we’ve been looking for. The indie game that ruled the world. And endlessly replayable. I could see myself playing it all year and onward. So thanks to Giant Bomb’s Jan Ochoa for shouting out Balatro as he fell down a Poker addiction well. So have I. And thousands more.

A game like Balatro doesn’t really need to feel good to play. Deck Builders typically don’t feel good. They lack the flashiness I want in my UI experience. The feedback I want with my every interaction. I stared at Slay the Spire for dozens and dozens of hours but the look of the game bored me entirely. I think Dicey Dungeons had more splash. More syrup. Yet I grew bored lookin at them dice. These deck builders became second screen experiences to me. An activity to fidget with as I watched TV.
Balatro hypnotizes me as they so warned. I focus so intently on the game that when I try to have something on in the background I completely ignore it. I’ve tried playing the game while watching Northernlion videos or streams of Balatro. An activity of multitasking which I typically love. Playing and watching at once. But it simply does not work when the game looks this good. Sounds this good. Feels this good.
I mean you’re just making decisions and taking turns to reach high scores. It’s not an action game. But it could be. The effects are that good. The strategy is that engrossing. The game allows altering gamespeed so you’re spending less time watching cards fan across your screen. I kept those animations playing normally for many hours. I found the game fun to watch. I found myself queuing yet another run because this game is so damn good I am tied down a prisoner. Balatro feels good run to run on controller with a mouse or even a touch screen. The flavor of this game’s effects cast spells upon the vulnerable game liker. Keeping you entranced for hours.

Each run features a rich and varied experience due to the amount of Joker cards that radically alter gameplay. You may go a run seeking only one hand type just to go another run where chaos reigns supreme. The possibilities only increase as you play. As you continue to unlock more cards. More jokers. More everything. You can’t depend on one strategy and hope for success. Stay flexible. You go with the cards you are dealt. Just like in real life playing uhhhhhh go fish.
Sometimes you gotta ask for 6’s you can’t always depend on winning only askin for 8’s come on!

Who knew competitive Go Fish would be a top 10 guarantee? That’s reality here in 2024. On god. As everyone making our favorite games gets fired we get to swell in mass accumulating libraries vaster than Greece just to languish unused wasted and null until they’re pulled from their digital stores creating pockets of absolute void. Video games are awesome and yet they fucking suck. Wasting my life. Goddamn wars and genocide happening across the world and I’m over here agonizing over the fucking high card I played when I confused spade for club cause I wasn’t paying enough attention. FUCK! I need to drink. Then sleep. Then wake up, drink, and go back to sleep. And then drink some more. And then sleep a lot. Mostly, sleep. But also, I’d like to wake up every now and then so I can drink. And while this cycle continues. Maybe I’ll play a couple hands of illegal poker. Thanks Balatro.

sleep in dirt
2/26/24