Balatro (Steam/PS5/Xbox Series X/Switch)

[hudson]

Balatro contains 2 ingredients that initially caught my attention. Poker and being Roguelike. The game plays very much more like the latter. It gets better the more you play and it's great. So addictive. You don't really need to know how to play poker, you just need to know the "hands" (these are listed in a handy "hand" chart). All the usual ones are there (no crazy new made up ones).

The game's Roguelike element and twist comes in the surrounding Joker cards (150 of them to collect!). They act as mostly multipliers and chip (score) boosters. You can hold up to 5 (so far) of these at a time. With a combination of 5 joker cards you can get into some serious high scoring territory. The game progress is simple. You don't play against anybody in particular, you simply just need to beat the blinds (preset scores you have to reach) in a number of hands (moves). You basically play bunches of 3 blinds, a small, medium and boss. The boss will have a sneaky rule attached to it i.e 'You can only play one hand type for entire round'. These are usually the places that'll trip you up.

There are other cards (e.g planets and tarot cards etc) these can further boost your hands in a variety of ways ie. level up your multipliers for hand types or upgrade any cards from your hand. After each blind beat, you can buy more cards in the shop. It's that simple, but like a lot of simple well executed indie games, this one slaps. Oh and there are shineys!

Presentation is nice. It has that video poker CRT look to it (you can turn off the effects that give this aesthetic (CRT bulge, glitching, bloom). The sound is decent, especially the sound effects which are minimalistic, but are quirky and interesting enough. Music is chill although so far, I think I've only heard the one track.


I paid 13 quid for the game from PS Store. Played on PS5.

Here's a video review to help better explain.

[fuse]

This is on my radar mainly as a lot of friends who are often early doors with the latest hot thing are all playing this constantly.

Definitely in the "not a poker fan" camp, but seeing as pretty much every heaping of glorious praise I see for this is balanced with "I don't like poker, but" I am not expecting that to be a problem. The bit that makes me a little more apprehensive is the "roguelite deckbuilder", as I've still not found it in myself to return to Inscryption either. Watching that video and seeing the look of it definitely conveys a lot of charm in the visual design though!

[wakka]

Ugh I really want to play this but it's Windows only! With how it's blown up I'm sure I'm sure we'll see ports soon, though.

[hudson]

Ugh I really want to play this but it's Windows only! With how it's blown up I'm sure I'm sure we'll see ports soon, though.

I have it on PS5 and Switch.

This game has made me late for a few things lately.

[wakka]

Huh, oh I got that completely wrong in that case! I have both of those platforms, thanks!

[hudson]

Still haven't completed a run on this. I've been trying to focus on getting Planet cards to level up my hand types and trying to work out a good combination of Jokers. Mostly suit focused multipliers. I'm not sure if this is a good tactic or not at the moment, but I'm having a lot of fun trying it out.

[hudson]

Managed to finish a run after a lot of attempts. I went with the aim of leveling up hand types with planet cards.

->Open Spoiler<-

I have now unlocked an Abandoned deck type which features no face cards

(did the royal family abandon the poor number card peasants?)

In one of my failed runs today, I managed to score 2 mil with one hand!

->Open Spoiler<-

(I've seen you can get way more than that - Quadrillions and even broken numbers - maybe coz you "broke the game"?)

I have to have a break now as I my children need food.

Anyone else pick it up?

This is going head-to-head with Helldivers 2 for GOTY, so far.

[MartyG]

I've been playing this today, it's very good. Well worth the £15-ish.

I haven't finished a run yet, but I've just cottoned on to using the Planet cards, I'd missed that these level up the winning hands, and they're pretty essential to increasing the scores needed to beat the later antes.

Trying the different decks is worthwhile, I'm finding the increase cards in hand and start with extra cash decks the most useful so far, but I haven't unlocked all of them yet.

It is very RNG, but it's fun to play so losing a run doesn't really matter. I'd recommend turning up the game speed though, otherwise, there's a lot of watching animations.

Overall I'd give this 9 Johnny Chans out of 10.

[MartyG]

Ten hours into this now, and I still haven't managed to complete a run :/ - the required tokens limits ramp up so quickly that even with the mults I can't seem to reach them past the 5th ante.

[hudson]

I have managed 2 complete runs so far. Obviously, you need some luck along the way, but I'd say you also need to be mindful of what Jokers are capable of. There are some combinations that just seem to get you into exponential scoring situations. For example, I had a joker setup which had the following:

Card Sharp: x3 Mult if played poker hand has already been played this round
Spare Trousers: Gains +2 Mult if a scoring hand contains a Two Pair. Note: Starts at +0 Mult. (spam high level 2 pairs here)
Supernova: Adds the number of times poker hand has been played to Mult

Can't remember what else was in my line up apart from...

and finally as the 5th: Swashbuckler: Adds the sell value of all owned Jokers left of this card to Mult

Something to be aware of is Mult scoring. Some add (+) Multipliers and some multiply the Mult - so yeah, you can get into silly territory.

With the above, spamming 2 pair (whilst levelling up my 2 pair hand with Neptune planet card, you can see how that could get silly.

There's lots of other combos like this for all other hand types etc. I'm pretty sure there are many other big brain approaches, but for now, this is how I've beaten a run. As I say though, you tend to need luck along the way.

[MartyG]

Yeah I get the jokers, but often I don't see the X mult cards show up, I don't think I've seen Card Sharp or Spare Trousers. I've seen Supernova a few times, and I like the "every card scores" card that will add to the coin score in addition to the actual hand played (and using the full 5 card play to discard cards if you run out of actual ones).

Two Pair combos seem to be the most common scoring hand, so I have been targeting that on the planets (but again RNG), and using the turn 3 cards into X suits for flushes.

I'm sure I'll get a lucky run sooner or later, and it doesn't really make the game less fun to play even if you don't complete a run.

Another hour and runs two up to Ante 6 - I've never made it past this.

[MartyG]

Finally managed to win a run; so long as you're able to get your mults up, and can plough planets into two pair, you can get some high scores, but it's definitely just luck as to whether you'll be able to get to that point.

I managed to make it up to ante 11 but lost to the boss who needed a score of 2 million(ish).

[hudson]

Nice! I managed a 3rd complete run last night. So have completed runs using red, green and Abandoned decks.

Found a video where a guy recently did a Joker tier list. Might be useful...

[hudson]

Completed 5 runs now which has unlocked challenge mode. There looks to be 20 Challenges. You start with preset joker/consumable slots, money etc and puts you in scenarios with specific and objectives to hit.

Had that egg Joker which gain $3 after each round. I kept this all through my run along with the Swashbuckler (Adds sell value of all jokers to the left to Mult). I got this up to 89 and had a some X mults going in tandem.

Great to stumble on these joker combinations!

[hudson]

Mobile version is in the works...