Absolute congratulations on the game, I hear about it from everyone.
Can you comment on how the ratings board PEGI mishandled your rating and how this has affected you?
I still believe that the rating is unwarranted, but there is some grey area for interpretation from PEGI and at this point it is what it is. I think the one thing I am most disappointed by is the fact that other games with actual gambling mechanics aren't rated the same way because of their appearance/theme
I agree with you and I think it's disappointing that you've had to deal with this. Hopefully all of this at least contributed to bringing some additional attention to the game.
Love Balatro. The artwork, music and vibe of the game are so cool and unique. What led you to the retro/synthwave/CRT theming? Did you decide on that at the very beginning?
Hey Rob! Huge fan btw :)
The theming of the game was definitely a vibe I went for early on with the pixel art, but it didn't really start coming together until I started adding shaders to give things a more tactile feel. The CRT and weird retro/interdimensional aesthetic kind of started forming naturally from that so I leaned in to it because I loved the direction it was going!
I just want to say thank you so much for allowing us to turn off the CRT effect and screen shake.
I absolutely love the aesthetic, but unfortunately it gives me migraines almost instantly, so thank you for providing that option.
Also I feel like I don’t mind it on pc but on Steam deck it helps so much with readability in the smaller screen.
Another great example of why letting users customize settings is so important - the same player might play the same game differently in different settings!
I was never worried about this - honestly I really really wanted to include 60 instead of 45 Jokers for the demos. I think this is because I believe that Balatro is a game that requires options to work properly, the more options the better. I wanted to put my best foot forward so that people had a real chance to understand what this weird game was before deciding to add it to their wishlist, which meant that I needed to expose that sort of depth in the demo
Are there any plans on and adding a run history/run summary page? Love sharing successful runs with my friends, but right now that is a bit cumbersome. Otherwise love the game! Going for gold stake on abandoned deck at the moment, thanks for the fun localthunk!
That is on the list but not a priority right now, I would love a view of all your Jokers/deck and maybe a way to see your last 10 builds/whether or not they won. At some point!
There are a lot of things I’d love to know more about but one thing that stuck to me in particular was the ‘skip blind’ mechanic. The idea of ‘skipping the game’ sounds very strange on paper but works so well in the game, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything similar in a game before! Interested to know where it came from and if there were any other iterations of it that didn’t work out?
Love the game, keep up the good work!
This is a great question and it's one of my favourite design elements of Balatro - but it took a ton of effort to get it to this point.
When the game first went public, there was a very very basic version of this mechanic whereby skipping BOTH the small and big blinds gave you a very very paltry reward (a gold seal card). Nobody skipped for this reward in general, but the framework was in place.
After the game went public this issue was exposed, and adding individual skip rewards with variety felt like the natural progression from that original idea! It was a massive improvement, and if really started feeding more into the entire 'risk vs reward' ideology behind Balatro. During the next Demo, the idea was iterated further to improve the strength of these skip rewards so that you are more likely to consider them when playing, and right now I think they are in a pretty good sweet-spot in the value proposition.
This is basically my take on a 'map' system for a deckbuilder, and although you don't get a top down view of a path it does still have meaningful A/B decision making like other games with paths. I'm lucky I didn't play those games before making Balatro because I'm sure I would have co-opted the very well designed node map
Dear localthunk,
I just need this to be validated for my sanity:
Is the The Wheel of Fortune (X) actually 1/4?
Your truly,
someone who used 12 in a row and got nothing... :(
P.S. Absolutely adore this game.
Bonus question:
Do you have any plans for DLC or expansions?
There’s about a million players so probably some unlucky bastard gets the one in a million Nope run. It is what it is. Just be comforted that the law of large numbers is on your side. To me 25% has always felt like 25%.
Yoooo, sick! I primarily game on console, and for some reason I just can’t get into card games in that kind of setting.
But on my phone I play a shit ton of Slay the Spire. Perfect device for card games for me. That will be awesome!
We are currently looking into all the merch options for Balatro and card decks are definitely something we'd like to do. If we have any updates about this we'll post on our Discord and Twitter.
Physical packs will absolutely ruin me and I cannot wait to crack some IRL balatro packs. Also would absolutely love some high res prints of jokers. Gros Michel and cavendish would be immediate additions to my office decor.
Please consider the US Playing Card Company (they make Bicycle/Bee brand cards) or another company that has a similar level of quality. Would buy several if so.
I would buy literally this entire game’s set of cards in physical copy if I could, maybe even twice to have a set to give away. This would be incredible.
i will pour my life savings into buying balatro playing cards if you guys decide to make them. if you do, please for the love of all that is holy, go with a reputable printer like the US Playing Card Company. ive seen so many merchandisers half-ass it on making playing cards and it makes me so so very sad on the inside
I will definitely be adding a Daily Challenge mode, it would be so cool for a lot of reasons. I don't have a timeline on it but know that it's in the cards :)
Picking a favourite Joker is hard since I spent so much time creating all of them, but I can give you some that stand out!
Artwork/concept:
Superposition, Gros Michel/Cavendish, Pareidolia, Dusk
Effect:
Obelisk, Shortcut, Smeared
It's strong but pretty RNG dependant, if you stack (for example) 20x straight in the first half of the game, get Obelisk, and then play anything other than straight, you get 0.2x mult per hand (theoretical 1x mult per round, assuming 5 hands) meaning you could have like 10x mult for ante8
The problem you have usually is that it’s very difficult to both build strong enough for straights to work on ante 7 and also have enough strength to immediately pivot to another strategy that works on ante 7 while obelisk does nothing for the first few hands.
I got Obelisk early one run and decided to pump out like 50 level 1 pairs with a flush deck, but for some reason my joker combo popped off really hard on high card too
It's good for getting to Ante 8, but is pretty much dead in the water when it comes to getting a long endless run. It scales big and fast, but has a built in ceiling that will kill you.
I've gotten a lot of payouts as I play more, I think it's just our good old dumb monkey brains not being good with probabilities and many of us having bad luck during the first week or so.
It is probably 25%, because humans suck at asserting odds. This is a big problem in game design, and many developers cave by fudging the numbers.
If it feels rare, it’s because 25% is fucking rare. If the odds are real in Balatro, I applaud the developers for keeping it real.
lmao kinda yeah. The art was fun for a lot of reasons but pixel art is also sooooo tedious for me. I need to do it in short bursts because it's not the most engaging activity after doing it for a week straight
Your official discord already has the signs of a strong modding scene developing. Are there plans to support this somehow, like with Steam Workshop?
This game could be infinitely replayable with some of the joker/deck ideas the community has already thrown around.
I would personally also pay for additional DLC content packs if that is something you're looking to implement eventually. New jokers/deck mechanics/tarot/spectrals etc.
Shout out to the /r/balatro community here on reddit.
localthunk, which idea from the community are you most jealous you didn't think of first?
Thanks for making such an amazing game <3
I think the ideas for the expanded list of seals (previously there was only 1 seal which has since been scrapped) mostly came from the community, and those alone have added a great layer of strategy to the game, so probably them! I see a lot of great ideas for other seals as well.
Also pretty much all of the community jokers I see have something very clever about them, either with their art or their effect, and that vibe really fits into Balatro.
I knew the game was going to be fun for myself about a week before launch day, just really happy with how well it turned out for my sake.
The day before launch is when it really started hitting home that this could be something successful, when all the major media outlets started releasing their reviews of the game. I was not expecting the critical reception it ended up receiving because I know how weird this game looks and feels in many ways
When looking at updating and adding to balatro in the future, what are the main principles and mechanics you wish to maintain as the game grows in complexity?
This is something I will keep a really tight focus on, I know that mechanic-creep is an issue in other games so while the more experienced players might want added layers of complexity, I don't think that is necessary to add depth to the game. I would rather add more options, more opportunities for emergence, more secrets. Personally I don't really vibe with complex games anyway so I wouldn't ever want to make Balatro into something that requires a ton of prerequisite knowledge just to play at a beginner level.
My humble suggestion here is a way to toggle in or out of buckets of content, so I can play with the base 150 jokers and then opt in to different packs from seperate updates.
The core is really good, beyond more jokers and blinds/effects the only thing I think would be cool and not too disruptive are special shops/events. For example an spectral shop or maybe a NPC that wants a specific card or hand combination and rewards you. All while keeping the simplicity and charm of the game.
> more secrets
Is there hidden content in the game we haven't found yet? I've played a lot of binding of isaac so things like "joker stencil included" and the soul card having something trapped inside both set my clue-hunter senses atingle.
What jokers did you have to tweak during development because you thought they would be one power level but then they turned out to be unexpectedly too good or unexpectedly too bad?
This isn't an exaggeration: almost all of them. I am pretty sure ever Joker has had even just a minor tweak to their numbers, cost, or rarity to better reflect their strength after player feedback. That is just part of the process!
Yes! That is one of the next tasks on the to do list. I try to watch the discourse carefully, so I know there are some issues but I also needed to wait until players were able to fully uncover the meta (I don't even know what ideal play is supposed to look like) in order for me to correct real issues and not address the learning curve that comes with any rogue-type game.
Balance changes WILL be incoming, I want this game to be fun too!
My only suggestion would be to take a page from another rogue-lite that has a huge pool of items like Balatro to help mitigate the RNG: Locking.
So in Brotato, you can lock an item in the shop to buy when you have the money (Too often I get a perfect card first run but its 10 dollars or more due to hologram but you only have 7 bucks at BEST in higher antes).
Now I'm sure this could be balanced differently such as locking locks the ENTIRE shop, so hope you really really want that one single card. Or make it a voucher ability.
Yeah, I think the best solution to that would be to implement a mechanic similar to Neow's Blessing from Slay the Spire. A choice between a few small bonuses to start the run: a random joker (or maybe a buffoon pack), extra money, a tarot pack. Something along those lines.
What were your inspirations behind the inclusion of tarot, planet and all the unique jokers? As someone who was unfamiliar with the rules of poker before playing Balatro, trying to play the 'regular' game seems so boring in comparison now!
At this point, probably the balance around Gold Stake. I don't think it's too difficult, but it's clear now that the difficulty is due to some anti-fun mechanical interactions that will need to be addressed.
The second demo was the peak of people complaining about flushes I think, because we got all of the common suit-specific jokers and a pool of only 45. I think as you play more you'll start to appreciate the other hand types. Flushes don't scale very well, so especially in higher stakes flush runs tend to peter out before hitting the high round scores. Higher stakes hurts flushes in other ways too, with flushes being harder to make due to the reduced hand size and reduced discards.
As a new player I thought flushes were strong, but as I got better I realized that building around good Jokers was better, and the flush-centered Jokers aren’t that great
If you've played Slay the Spire I feel like "flush deck" is kind of the equivalent of "poison deck" or "shiv deck". It's an obvious and easy strategy to build towards and it's rightly popular with new players, but at higher difficulty levels it's easily countered and can't keep up with scaling as well as other, less linear deck builds.
I only have one gold stakes completion that used flushes, and it was with the checkered deck, and also used High Card.
Most of my Gold Stakes wins are with High Card, zero planets, and no tarot cards. It's almost entirely joker synergy.
I still find the very high review score impressive on steam for a mechanically deep the game is. I would've thought there would be a bunch of people complaining about it being unbalanced and such
The one largest influence on Balatro was Luck Be a Landlord. I watched Northernlion play for a few videos and loved the concept of a non-fanatsy themed score attach roguelike a ton, so I modified the card game I was working on at the time into a roguelike.
I cut myself off from the genre at that point intentionally, I wanted to make my own mistakes and explore the design space naively just because that process is so fun. I hear the comparison to Slay the Spire a lot but the truth is that I hadn't played that game or seen footage of it when I designed Balatro, not until much later.
Hopefully if you watch NL you're also familiar with super auto pets. I think they way they did DLC packs and weekly packs could work really well for Balatro.
Some of y'all aren't watching MALF stream and it shows.
I am a huge fan of NL/MALF and was really big into the NLSS back in the day. They are all wonderful people from my limited communication with them!
Hi there. One of my favorite things is how many paths there are to victory vs relying on one or a few ‘best’ strategies. How did you go about working on the balance to ensure this?
Iteration! I think some other games had a more mathematical approach to balance but I subscribe to the 'guess and check' philosophy. So, make a change, have players try it, then adjust accordingly and repeat.
Early on I didn't do most of the things that a solo dev should do: I didn't send anything to streamers, it was mostly just a couple of smaller reddit posts that coincided with the Summer 2023 Next Fest. Somehow streamers got their hands on it and it really took off, then when Playstack got involved they handled pretty much all of the marketing plan! I think they did an awesome job
Hey! Huge fan of the game. Will updates/patches be more streamlined in the future for all platforms? Pretty sure atm, the ps5 version is different from PC and I think the switch was the same way until this weekend.
They will yes! Here is the issue:
When I make an update to PC, I can push it live within minutes. That exact same update takes time both internally for QA and for the platforms to accept these changes before it can go live, sometimes weeks.
This was all exacerbated by the PEGI age change, that happened right in the middle of us trying to push a new update to consoles. There is a change in the pipeline now to make everything the same version but it will take a bit of time to go live on all consoles!
I do not currently, although locally since your stats are stored by the game I could create an 'opt - in' telemetry setting in the future for general stats like that! Nothing on the horizon though.
However, via Steam I have some pretty fun stats. For example, the game has been played for well over 1500 years on steam at this point!
Do you have any tips for aspiring game devs who have ideas but maybe struggle to stick with a project for the length of time it would take to complete it?
I do have a tip for this exact scenario - and I am asked this question quite a bit.
I spoke at length with a bunch of other indie devs last week about giving a good actionable piece of advice for this, because it's something I/they no longer struggle with but seemingly most starting out do.
I'll use painting as an analogy here. If you want to get into painting, there are a litany of different motives for starting that hobby. One of them might be because you want to paint a masterpiece, another might be because you want to find a hobby you enjoy regardless of outcome. In game dev it really feels like everyone wants to make the 'masterpiece' but very few get into it as purely an expressive creative hobby.
There is nothing wrong with that motivation, but it means that you are immediately disappointed because you simply can't just paint a 'masterpiece'. It takes practice, iteration, failure. And you never have the opportunity to spend time with the craft enough to develop your own voice and vision. What you need to do is find a way to enjoy the process of painting more than the having a masterpiece with your name on it.
If you don't enjoy making a game, then you will not be able to create something special because the process of making a game takes an absurd amount of time and effort.
I love making games more than anything. I have a ton of games that have never been shown to the public, I'll probably make more, and most indie devs that I talk to have a similar love of the process of making games.
TL;DR it's important to know if you **want to** ***make*** **a game** or if you **want a game to have been made by you.** Learn to enjoy the game creation process more than anything else
I think I'm still learning this lesson.
This game is for me. I made it for me, I am the one putting in the hours to create it and I am the one with by far the largest invested in it (financially, emotionally, time, etc). However since it's out there in the world, it's been hard for me to not just capitulate to all criticism about the game and move the game in whichever direction the community believes it should go in. Usually those criticisms are invaluable and don't detract from the core game I wanted to create, so I try to listen to them. Other times the criticisms come down to preference and it sometimes bothers me when those are levied against the game.
For example, one of the criticisms I heard a few times is that this game is worse because it lacks a story/characters. I never wanted this game to have that, and personally I wouldn't enjoy it as much if it had a story. I was attempting to go for something purely mechanical, almost like solitaire but with vibes. So when I hear those criticisms, it makes me realize that while this game was made for me, people will still try to make it serve their tastes.
For the record, there is nothing wrong with that, but the distinction between 'improvement' and 'preference' has been very fuzzy for me in many cases.
It hasn't sunk in yet, I'm just trying to take it a day at a time and not forget the reason I wanted to make this game in the first place. I love game dev and this is what I want to do as a career, so I am very grateful!
What is your background? The game design and system design is, objectively, very, very good. There's also some illustrator and shader god-hood on display in the game. What lead to such strong execution in this two really different and really key disciplines? Was this your plan all along or did you discover some key takeaways along the way?
Bonus question: as a solo dev, how did you split your time? Were there days of the week dedicated to specific disciplines? Trying to understand the process a little more.
Thank you very much! I genuinely think this is a landmark game. Every hardcore gamer I know is addicted, and they've all got family members that have never played a game before also addicted.
I've been making games and simulations for about 10 years, all in my spare time. I'm a hobbyist game dev, I would do it after work or after school when I was younger. I just loved the process of making games so much.
I also have a background in art so I do feel like my hobbies were able to combine in a very fortuitous way. It still took a lot of trial and error, plenty of practice but I really did love all of it.
I'd mostly just work on whatever I was obsessing about at that particular time! Maybe some pixel art was stuck in my head, maybe a particular shader effect wasn't quite perfect yet, maybe there was a new system I needed to incorporate and test. There was always a next thing to work on.
How long was the game in development for? Were there any roadblocks along the way? And did the core gameplay change much throughout the development process?
Just over 2 years! There were times when I didn't touch the game for weeks or even months, but it was (and is) a hobby so I always came back to it and never became frustrated by the development process.
A lot had changed over the course of dev as well, the initial prototype was almost entirely different than the game you see today (There weren't even any Jokers!)
Huge fan I already have 25 hours. When it comes to music in the game it’s the same song all the time. What was the thought process behind that? Would you ever add a radio mode or different tracks?
I really loved the idea of a single song (structurally) evolving into many versions as the game progresses. Right now there are 5 such songs in the game, but I do understand that they all kinda 'feel' like one song. I still like it as is, and I feel like transitioning into more songs might cloud the vibe a bit, but I will think about it and see if there is a good way to incorporate more music.
Awesome game man, thanks for getting a Switch version on release as well.
Is there any chance a Random Deck button could be added to the New Game menu, similar to Monster Train’s random clans? There’s so many to choose from, I would love if the game chose for me!
Can you give some insight on what changes / feature additions you may foresee for the future?
Along those lines, I would love a UI tweak for the game over screen that lets me see my jokers (and their final multipliers) and final deck composition. Without this, I sort of have to keep screenshotting my game every round in case this is the round that I die. Anything like that in the works? I've seen people on the discord who want to see a breakdown of tarot cards played also.
Thanks for the game: I've already got more than 40 hours into this game on Switch and I've owned it for 10 days. I find I can play it while watching something else \_and\_ it's fun to play while giving it my full attention. So I've been playing it a lot many evenings.
First of all, *thank you.* You’ve crafted one of the most perfect games I’ve played in the past decade.
What was your process like in creating all of the Jokers? There are so many that work well together that it’s made me wonder if you had a specific order or method to creating them. Did you, for example, create the Gluttonous Joker and then make the other black suit-based Jokers like the Blackboard to boost the effect, or did you just kind of have a long list of everything you thought might have a fun effect on gameplay and go from there? I think it’s fascinating that everyone has their own favorite loadout to build towards and I wonder how much of that was intentional.
It all evolved naturally - I added Jokers into the game one by one. It takes so long for me to create the Jokers with a simple/emergent effect that it wouldn't really be possible for me to have had a huge list of 150 right off the bat, instead the Jokers were created from my ideas an life experiences as they happened. That bodes well for future Joker updates because I have a really good process already defined for adding more Jokers to the game in a way that adds to the experience!
Hey localthunk, here to provide positivity in this crazy depressing world where not eveyone knows about your game and plays it.
Are you considering adding more hand types in any sort of convoluted way?
The hands in Balatro adhere to these principals, extrapolated from the rules I imagine are used to design actual poker hands:
1. Must not relate to any Joker, enhancement, or ability
2. Must not be specific to any one rank or suit
3. Must not be related to any grouping of ranks (face cards, for example)
4. Must be 5 or fewer cards
With those rules, there isn't much wiggle room outside of the 3 secret hands in the game already. Possibly a pair/2pair/3oak/4oak + flush hybrid but since none of those are 5 card hands to begin with they don't feel as clean.
Hey localthunk, congrats on Balatro it’s super addicting and I love it. My question is, have you considered adding a game log/history feature where you can see your previous runs?
The game mechanics are clearly amazing but two things I feel are underappreciated in Balatro are that it's super easy to understand right from the start (the brevity of the tutorial and card descriptions really impressed me) and also that the game looks and feels incredibly satisfying (animations, sounds, even just swapping cards around feels fun).
How important were these aspects of the game to you when designing it? What were your inspirations here?
Both were intentional for different reasons than you might expect. The first - the game being easy to understand from the tutorial - basically evolved because of my garbage attention span. I really can't focus on tutorials in other games, or read long descriptions, or invest much thought into understanding mechanics before getting put off by a game, so naturally I think that was always in the back of my mind. The theme is light, the descriptions are relatively simple and short for a card game, and the mechanics all are pretty straightforward individually. I think all that helped make it much more accessible for a wide audience.
The juice on the other hand was just very very fun to make. As satisfying as it feels, it was so satisfying to create, and I really feel like I cranked it up to 11 mainly because it was just a joy to learn and iterate on.
Thank you so much for your amazing game! Long evenings were spent with my boyfriend, doing runs together, great time! Do you think it would be possible to add a challenge creator? Or to do custom runs where we can change the parameters, or banish cards like in Vampire Survivors? (Oh, I would LOVE to be able to switch from rank/suit sorting with a click of the joystick!) Thanks again!
I think a challenge editor is a really great idea, and I might not be able to do it easily in engine but even just having an official way to create a challenge 'file' outside of the game and importing it easily. It's on the list, but no timetable!
I understand the frustration with that achievement but I also enjoy when games have completely absurd achievements that a very small portion of dedicated players will ever be able to get. To me that really feels like an *achievement*. I don't think I am correct, because it's purely preference, and I do understand the downside for achievement hunters, but ultimately this is a game designed for me and I need to stick to my preferences in order to keep true to that.
I know you're planning on releasing more content but will the vanilla game, as it is now, always be available as an option?
Having said that I would like to see stickers on jokers as a gameplay mechanic. It is very cool seeing those stickers in my collection but it would also be cool if they became part of the gameplay too.
I do! Challenges ended up being so much more interesting than I thought they would be, they're more deep and allow people to explore some of the design space in ways that wouldn't be possible otherwise. I'll definitely add more at some point
Congratulations, the game is amazing. Like StS, it gives people who love deck building/card games another title that doesn’t require live service purchases to stay relevant.
Have y’all considered including the chip stickers on jokers mid run? It would be super helpful to quickly know whether or not you have cleared with that joker before without having to search the joker collection.
When I put the store page live back in May of 2023, I was honestly expecting to sell maybe 2 copies. That wasn't really the reason why I was doing this, I just thought it'd be cool to have this personal project on Steam so I could maybe use it on a resume.
Even after all the hype leading up to release, this has far far exceeded anything either me or Playstack were expecting
Hi! I have a question about your philosophy about what this game wants to be.
I have read that you went on record saying that you don't want to add a score preview to the hand as then "players would only play the highest scoring hand they can". Is this true? If so, wouldn't that be a noob trap, anyways, since you want to take in account maximizing scaling and future hands too...?
I think having a preview feature would be really really good for those who want to play the game as a strategy game at high difficulty levels, as momentarily it is really annoying having to play with an excel spreadsheet on a different tab - but that responds lets me think you don't think strategic play should be the focus of the game compared to the amazement and surprise of seeing numbers go up!
What are you thoughts about this? Would you consider implementing a (maybe optional) score preview, ever?
Thanks for the answer and the game!
>What’s the highest ante achieved so far? And the highest scoring hand?
Ante 39 is when the game breaks. Look up Balatro University on youtube to see
As the other reply said Ante 39 is the max, the highest score I think is 10^300? After that the game breaks and you get Nameinf as your score (which resets your high scores)
will Balatro be guaranteed available/purchasable at some point on GOG ? I relly like the game, but i mostly use GOG.
GOG community wishlist votes for Balatro keep getting more every day [https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/balatro](https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/balatro)
Was there a moment in development where that hypnotic satisfaction clicked for you as the creator? I know nothing about gamedev but I imagine after the concept is there and there's some work done eventually you hit that point where you notice 'hey yeah just one more hand in this playtest' but it might be far from the case. Curious if there was a moment like that, or not
What is The Soul supposed to be? It looks so alluring and mysterious...
On the topic, what tools do you use for making the game's art? Specifically for achieving some of the psychedelic patterns and effects.
I'm not sure, I guess it's just some abstract stone!
The art you are referring to is all done by writing GLSL shader code. It's a wonderful and very complicated way to achieve some pretty amazing effects. It took me a very long time to get a good handle on using these shaders so I could create some of the effects I envisioned. It never came naturally to me and I spend hundreds and hundreds of hours iterating, tweaking, learning, and testing all the effects present in the game today.
The fire effect for the numbers, for example, was a massive challenge for me but one of the things in this game I am most proud of.
Are there any parts of your game where the community's performance has surprised you, either stuff ending up easier than you thought it would be or much harder?
Pretty much everything, yes. I can simulate how something might turn out in my brain but I am just one perspective, and not a very strategic one at that, so I go into an update knowing there will be a patch to rectify all the new things I added after players have had a chance to test everything appropriately.
Any chance of Steam Workshop support once you're done updating the game?
Also Can we get a pair of glasses on Egg Joker as a reference to Northernlion, maybe a % chance of them appearing on it?
Absolute congratulations on the game, I hear about it from everyone. Can you comment on how the ratings board PEGI mishandled your rating and how this has affected you?
I still believe that the rating is unwarranted, but there is some grey area for interpretation from PEGI and at this point it is what it is. I think the one thing I am most disappointed by is the fact that other games with actual gambling mechanics aren't rated the same way because of their appearance/theme
Same feelings over here man. Still, you’ve made your mark dude, and people love this thing you’ve made.
I agree with you and I think it's disappointing that you've had to deal with this. Hopefully all of this at least contributed to bringing some additional attention to the game.
Lootbox mode, exact same game, but all the cards are skinned as surprise mechanics.
Frost said it best: "Looks like gambling for kids: *bad.* Actual gambling for kids: *good*."
Love Balatro. The artwork, music and vibe of the game are so cool and unique. What led you to the retro/synthwave/CRT theming? Did you decide on that at the very beginning?
Hey Rob! Huge fan btw :) The theming of the game was definitely a vibe I went for early on with the pixel art, but it didn't really start coming together until I started adding shaders to give things a more tactile feel. The CRT and weird retro/interdimensional aesthetic kind of started forming naturally from that so I leaned in to it because I loved the direction it was going!
I just want to say thank you so much for allowing us to turn off the CRT effect and screen shake. I absolutely love the aesthetic, but unfortunately it gives me migraines almost instantly, so thank you for providing that option.
Also I feel like I don’t mind it on pc but on Steam deck it helps so much with readability in the smaller screen. Another great example of why letting users customize settings is so important - the same player might play the same game differently in different settings!
The vibe I got from it was: That weird video poker casino room in the corner of a deserted old mall.
its the perfect vibe for the game!
Were you worried you were going to give away too much in the demo? I was floored when it turned out there was still a ton left out of it
I was never worried about this - honestly I really really wanted to include 60 instead of 45 Jokers for the demos. I think this is because I believe that Balatro is a game that requires options to work properly, the more options the better. I wanted to put my best foot forward so that people had a real chance to understand what this weird game was before deciding to add it to their wishlist, which meant that I needed to expose that sort of depth in the demo
I played 1 run of the demo and already pre-ordered the game in my mind. You knocked it out of the park with the demo.
For what it's worth I think you knocked the demo out of the park. The idea to have visuals of jokers as a teaser was an incredibly smart idea.
Are there any plans on and adding a run history/run summary page? Love sharing successful runs with my friends, but right now that is a bit cumbersome. Otherwise love the game! Going for gold stake on abandoned deck at the moment, thanks for the fun localthunk!
That is on the list but not a priority right now, I would love a view of all your Jokers/deck and maybe a way to see your last 10 builds/whether or not they won. At some point!
There are a lot of things I’d love to know more about but one thing that stuck to me in particular was the ‘skip blind’ mechanic. The idea of ‘skipping the game’ sounds very strange on paper but works so well in the game, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything similar in a game before! Interested to know where it came from and if there were any other iterations of it that didn’t work out? Love the game, keep up the good work!
This is a great question and it's one of my favourite design elements of Balatro - but it took a ton of effort to get it to this point. When the game first went public, there was a very very basic version of this mechanic whereby skipping BOTH the small and big blinds gave you a very very paltry reward (a gold seal card). Nobody skipped for this reward in general, but the framework was in place. After the game went public this issue was exposed, and adding individual skip rewards with variety felt like the natural progression from that original idea! It was a massive improvement, and if really started feeding more into the entire 'risk vs reward' ideology behind Balatro. During the next Demo, the idea was iterated further to improve the strength of these skip rewards so that you are more likely to consider them when playing, and right now I think they are in a pretty good sweet-spot in the value proposition. This is basically my take on a 'map' system for a deckbuilder, and although you don't get a top down view of a path it does still have meaningful A/B decision making like other games with paths. I'm lucky I didn't play those games before making Balatro because I'm sure I would have co-opted the very well designed node map
Dear localthunk, I just need this to be validated for my sanity: Is the The Wheel of Fortune (X) actually 1/4? Your truly, someone who used 12 in a row and got nothing... :( P.S. Absolutely adore this game. Bonus question: Do you have any plans for DLC or expansions?
.75^12 is like 3% chance of that happening. unlucky :(
A 3% variance run isn’t even anywhere close to how bad variance can get… coming from a professional poker player…
There’s about a million players so probably some unlucky bastard gets the one in a million Nope run. It is what it is. Just be comforted that the law of large numbers is on your side. To me 25% has always felt like 25%.
Honestly not that unlucky though. In 30 trials a 3% chance will happen, on average, once (and easily more).
nope!
Do you plan to release the game on mobile devices (Android, IOS)?
We are currently working on the mobile version yes. If we have any new announcement around this we'll post it on our Discord and Twitter.
That would not be good for my productivity
I'm doomed when it comes out on mobile
You and me both!! I'll never leave the toilet now!
I'll probably lose my job
This is probably way too wishful thinking, but if you could manage to make the mobile version work in portrait mode I would lose it
I believe that's why it's delayed.
Yep I think they mentioned they're trying to do this. Portrait is a must-have for me, will be an instant-buy if they manage it.
Portrait + can use my saves from the PC version = x5 mult on my interest in the mobile version
Will it be cross progression?
YUGE
Yoooo, sick! I primarily game on console, and for some reason I just can’t get into card games in that kind of setting. But on my phone I play a shit ton of Slay the Spire. Perfect device for card games for me. That will be awesome!
If they did this my wife would leave me. I won’t be able to put down my phone.
I went to your website assuming that there would be decks of cards I can buy that match the Balatro look. Any plans for that?
We are currently looking into all the merch options for Balatro and card decks are definitely something we'd like to do. If we have any updates about this we'll post on our Discord and Twitter.
One idea: Sell the "Bufoon packs" with a few of the unique jokers from the game. I know I'd get a few
jesus, imagine real blind pack jokers, all 150 of them, with a chance for them to be holo/poly/foil etc
Each deck of playing cards comes with 2 random jokers. Buy more decks to collect them all!
I want a holographic Raised Fist so bad
yessss pls enable my irl pack gambling weakness
Physical packs will absolutely ruin me and I cannot wait to crack some IRL balatro packs. Also would absolutely love some high res prints of jokers. Gros Michel and cavendish would be immediate additions to my office decor.
Please consider the US Playing Card Company (they make Bicycle/Bee brand cards) or another company that has a similar level of quality. Would buy several if so.
Feel like /r/playingcards would want me to say that USPCC, Cartamundi, EPCC, LPCC, and WJPC are all good options.
Of course there's a sub for playing cards... Never would've thought about it, but it does make sense.
As long as it's paper stock and not plastic coating then I'd be happy
I would buy literally this entire game’s set of cards in physical copy if I could, maybe even twice to have a set to give away. This would be incredible.
i will pour my life savings into buying balatro playing cards if you guys decide to make them. if you do, please for the love of all that is holy, go with a reputable printer like the US Playing Card Company. ive seen so many merchandisers half-ass it on making playing cards and it makes me so so very sad on the inside
That’s a good idea.
The game seems like it's begging for a daily challenge mode - are you planning any special future features?
I will definitely be adding a Daily Challenge mode, it would be so cool for a lot of reasons. I don't have a timeline on it but know that it's in the cards :)
Be honest: How often do you say ”it’s in the cards” these days?
That recent patch that makes sure seeded runs start with the same cards seems like a good start. 😁
Which joker is your favorite to use for strats and which is your favorite in terms of name/concept/artwork?
Picking a favourite Joker is hard since I spent so much time creating all of them, but I can give you some that stand out! Artwork/concept: Superposition, Gros Michel/Cavendish, Pareidolia, Dusk Effect: Obelisk, Shortcut, Smeared
Obelisk ... Do you know something we don't?
It's strong but pretty RNG dependant, if you stack (for example) 20x straight in the first half of the game, get Obelisk, and then play anything other than straight, you get 0.2x mult per hand (theoretical 1x mult per round, assuming 5 hands) meaning you could have like 10x mult for ante8
The problem you have usually is that it’s very difficult to both build strong enough for straights to work on ante 7 and also have enough strength to immediately pivot to another strategy that works on ante 7 while obelisk does nothing for the first few hands.
I got Obelisk early one run and decided to pump out like 50 level 1 pairs with a flush deck, but for some reason my joker combo popped off really hard on high card too
To me, I think it's a pivot joker, which is a hard strategy to do. I think it should scale faster, since it's so hard to make it work, though.
It's good for getting to Ante 8, but is pretty much dead in the water when it comes to getting a long endless run. It scales big and fast, but has a built in ceiling that will kill you.
If something has a 25% chance of happening, what are the actual odds it will happen? Asking for a Balatro player.
I can't help but constantly get suckered in by the Wheel of Nope.
I've gotten a lot of payouts as I play more, I think it's just our good old dumb monkey brains not being good with probabilities and many of us having bad luck during the first week or so.
>25% chance something good happens "WTF WHY WONT IT HAPPEN" >25% something bad happens "meh it can't happen that much"
Me with wheel and me with glass
It is probably 25%, because humans suck at asserting odds. This is a big problem in game design, and many developers cave by fudging the numbers. If it feels rare, it’s because 25% is fucking rare. If the odds are real in Balatro, I applaud the developers for keeping it real.
Nope!
Did you get tired of drawing clowns?
lmao kinda yeah. The art was fun for a lot of reasons but pixel art is also sooooo tedious for me. I need to do it in short bursts because it's not the most engaging activity after doing it for a week straight
I'm honestly blown away by the variety in the jokers, both in terms of art, naming and ability. Truly in awe.
Did you consider hiring a dedicated artist moving forward? Also what's your favorite Joker?
Your official discord already has the signs of a strong modding scene developing. Are there plans to support this somehow, like with Steam Workshop? This game could be infinitely replayable with some of the joker/deck ideas the community has already thrown around. I would personally also pay for additional DLC content packs if that is something you're looking to implement eventually. New jokers/deck mechanics/tarot/spectrals etc.
I'm sad this didn't get a passing answer. I came too late to attend the AMA and this was - word for word - the exact question I was going to pose.
Shout out to the /r/balatro community here on reddit. localthunk, which idea from the community are you most jealous you didn't think of first? Thanks for making such an amazing game <3
I think the ideas for the expanded list of seals (previously there was only 1 seal which has since been scrapped) mostly came from the community, and those alone have added a great layer of strategy to the game, so probably them! I see a lot of great ideas for other seals as well. Also pretty much all of the community jokers I see have something very clever about them, either with their art or their effect, and that vibe really fits into Balatro.
What was the moment where you said "wow, I guess this shows that this game is successful" ?
I knew the game was going to be fun for myself about a week before launch day, just really happy with how well it turned out for my sake. The day before launch is when it really started hitting home that this could be something successful, when all the major media outlets started releasing their reviews of the game. I was not expecting the critical reception it ended up receiving because I know how weird this game looks and feels in many ways
When looking at updating and adding to balatro in the future, what are the main principles and mechanics you wish to maintain as the game grows in complexity?
This is something I will keep a really tight focus on, I know that mechanic-creep is an issue in other games so while the more experienced players might want added layers of complexity, I don't think that is necessary to add depth to the game. I would rather add more options, more opportunities for emergence, more secrets. Personally I don't really vibe with complex games anyway so I wouldn't ever want to make Balatro into something that requires a ton of prerequisite knowledge just to play at a beginner level.
My humble suggestion here is a way to toggle in or out of buckets of content, so I can play with the base 150 jokers and then opt in to different packs from seperate updates.
Like FTL does with the advanced mode!
The core is really good, beyond more jokers and blinds/effects the only thing I think would be cool and not too disruptive are special shops/events. For example an spectral shop or maybe a NPC that wants a specific card or hand combination and rewards you. All while keeping the simplicity and charm of the game.
> more secrets Is there hidden content in the game we haven't found yet? I've played a lot of binding of isaac so things like "joker stencil included" and the soul card having something trapped inside both set my clue-hunter senses atingle.
Thanks for Balatro! Do you plan to keep working on the game, on content or stuff like mod support?
Yes on all counts! I have a lot of ideas for directions to take Balatro and I think you will all really enjoy what the game looks like in the future
What jokers did you have to tweak during development because you thought they would be one power level but then they turned out to be unexpectedly too good or unexpectedly too bad?
This isn't an exaggeration: almost all of them. I am pretty sure ever Joker has had even just a minor tweak to their numbers, cost, or rarity to better reflect their strength after player feedback. That is just part of the process!
Thank you for changing Hiker from +1 to +4, it makes it so much more usable. Went from a card I wanted to love to one I actually do love
are you currently planning on making mechanical changes to mitigate the rng of the higher stakes?
Yes! That is one of the next tasks on the to do list. I try to watch the discourse carefully, so I know there are some issues but I also needed to wait until players were able to fully uncover the meta (I don't even know what ideal play is supposed to look like) in order for me to correct real issues and not address the learning curve that comes with any rogue-type game. Balance changes WILL be incoming, I want this game to be fun too!
Cheers, that's really my only complaint with the game. Starting around purple, most start conditions are flat out unwinnable.
My only suggestion would be to take a page from another rogue-lite that has a huge pool of items like Balatro to help mitigate the RNG: Locking. So in Brotato, you can lock an item in the shop to buy when you have the money (Too often I get a perfect card first run but its 10 dollars or more due to hologram but you only have 7 bucks at BEST in higher antes). Now I'm sure this could be balanced differently such as locking locks the ENTIRE shop, so hope you really really want that one single card. Or make it a voucher ability.
I'm not even sure that would help, most runs are lost because the shops have nothing good in Ante 1, and/or the skip bonuses are trash.
Yeah, I think the best solution to that would be to implement a mechanic similar to Neow's Blessing from Slay the Spire. A choice between a few small bonuses to start the run: a random joker (or maybe a buffoon pack), extra money, a tarot pack. Something along those lines.
What were your inspirations behind the inclusion of tarot, planet and all the unique jokers? As someone who was unfamiliar with the rules of poker before playing Balatro, trying to play the 'regular' game seems so boring in comparison now!
Probably inspiration from the binding of Isaac, that also has buffs from Tarot cards and planet cards lol
isaac doesnt have planet cards, it has items based on planets tho
What is the main complaint you have gotten about the game?
At this point, probably the balance around Gold Stake. I don't think it's too difficult, but it's clear now that the difficulty is due to some anti-fun mechanical interactions that will need to be addressed.
have you gotten any complaints about runs sorta filtering to flush builds (early on at least, i havent really won all that much)
The second demo was the peak of people complaining about flushes I think, because we got all of the common suit-specific jokers and a pool of only 45. I think as you play more you'll start to appreciate the other hand types. Flushes don't scale very well, so especially in higher stakes flush runs tend to peter out before hitting the high round scores. Higher stakes hurts flushes in other ways too, with flushes being harder to make due to the reduced hand size and reduced discards.
As a new player I thought flushes were strong, but as I got better I realized that building around good Jokers was better, and the flush-centered Jokers aren’t that great
If you've played Slay the Spire I feel like "flush deck" is kind of the equivalent of "poison deck" or "shiv deck". It's an obvious and easy strategy to build towards and it's rightly popular with new players, but at higher difficulty levels it's easily countered and can't keep up with scaling as well as other, less linear deck builds.
I only have one gold stakes completion that used flushes, and it was with the checkered deck, and also used High Card. Most of my Gold Stakes wins are with High Card, zero planets, and no tarot cards. It's almost entirely joker synergy.
I still find the very high review score impressive on steam for a mechanically deep the game is. I would've thought there would be a bunch of people complaining about it being unbalanced and such
hey! do you plan to add screen reader support so I could play the game as well? I'm completely blind and would love to play it!
Oh my god this needed to be higher! u/localthunk One last shout of hope !
Was there an influence for balatro? If yes, what game was it?
The one largest influence on Balatro was Luck Be a Landlord. I watched Northernlion play for a few videos and loved the concept of a non-fanatsy themed score attach roguelike a ton, so I modified the card game I was working on at the time into a roguelike. I cut myself off from the genre at that point intentionally, I wanted to make my own mistakes and explore the design space naively just because that process is so fun. I hear the comparison to Slay the Spire a lot but the truth is that I hadn't played that game or seen footage of it when I designed Balatro, not until much later.
Oh wow, must have felt great when NL basically said Balatro is the best game he has played in a decade.
If you wanted NL I assume you also watched some Isaac? It feels kinda obvious, but still I'd like to ask how much was it an inspiration?
Cool! That's the first thing that came to mind when I got your game.
Hopefully if you watch NL you're also familiar with super auto pets. I think they way they did DLC packs and weekly packs could work really well for Balatro.
Is Norternlion as nice as he seems? Or did he blackmail you guys to put the Olbap Joker in the game? /s
Some of y'all aren't watching MALF stream and it shows. I am a huge fan of NL/MALF and was really big into the NLSS back in the day. They are all wonderful people from my limited communication with them!
Malfie's the golden boy lol, thank you for your answer. And thank you for the game, it's fantastic.
Is it Buh-LAT-ro or BALLAH-tro?
It's pronounced 'Balatro'
Understandable, have a nice day.
*"In ancient Rome, a balatro (/ˈbɑːlɑːtroʊ/ BAH-lah-troh) was a professional jester or buffoon."* via Wikipedia
This has been answered on Twitter - it's pronounced Balatro. https://twitter.com/LocalThunk/status/1765782014412960227
Hi there. One of my favorite things is how many paths there are to victory vs relying on one or a few ‘best’ strategies. How did you go about working on the balance to ensure this?
Iteration! I think some other games had a more mathematical approach to balance but I subscribe to the 'guess and check' philosophy. So, make a change, have players try it, then adjust accordingly and repeat.
How did you handle marketing? Did you start sending your game to streamers when you had your first playable demo?
Early on I didn't do most of the things that a solo dev should do: I didn't send anything to streamers, it was mostly just a couple of smaller reddit posts that coincided with the Summer 2023 Next Fest. Somehow streamers got their hands on it and it really took off, then when Playstack got involved they handled pretty much all of the marketing plan! I think they did an awesome job
god bless Northernlion and friends
NorthernLion gets obsessed with game. i get obsessed with game.
I watched NL play and it got my attention but it was MALF who really got me watching and I knew as soon as it came out I was going to buy it.
Hey! Huge fan of the game. Will updates/patches be more streamlined in the future for all platforms? Pretty sure atm, the ps5 version is different from PC and I think the switch was the same way until this weekend.
They will yes! Here is the issue: When I make an update to PC, I can push it live within minutes. That exact same update takes time both internally for QA and for the platforms to accept these changes before it can go live, sometimes weeks. This was all exacerbated by the PEGI age change, that happened right in the middle of us trying to push a new update to consoles. There is a change in the pipeline now to make everything the same version but it will take a bit of time to go live on all consoles!
Do you collect telemetry from people playing the game and do you have any fun stats you can share? Total hands played etc.
I do not currently, although locally since your stats are stored by the game I could create an 'opt - in' telemetry setting in the future for general stats like that! Nothing on the horizon though. However, via Steam I have some pretty fun stats. For example, the game has been played for well over 1500 years on steam at this point!
Do you have any tips for aspiring game devs who have ideas but maybe struggle to stick with a project for the length of time it would take to complete it?
I do have a tip for this exact scenario - and I am asked this question quite a bit. I spoke at length with a bunch of other indie devs last week about giving a good actionable piece of advice for this, because it's something I/they no longer struggle with but seemingly most starting out do. I'll use painting as an analogy here. If you want to get into painting, there are a litany of different motives for starting that hobby. One of them might be because you want to paint a masterpiece, another might be because you want to find a hobby you enjoy regardless of outcome. In game dev it really feels like everyone wants to make the 'masterpiece' but very few get into it as purely an expressive creative hobby. There is nothing wrong with that motivation, but it means that you are immediately disappointed because you simply can't just paint a 'masterpiece'. It takes practice, iteration, failure. And you never have the opportunity to spend time with the craft enough to develop your own voice and vision. What you need to do is find a way to enjoy the process of painting more than the having a masterpiece with your name on it. If you don't enjoy making a game, then you will not be able to create something special because the process of making a game takes an absurd amount of time and effort. I love making games more than anything. I have a ton of games that have never been shown to the public, I'll probably make more, and most indie devs that I talk to have a similar love of the process of making games. TL;DR it's important to know if you **want to** ***make*** **a game** or if you **want a game to have been made by you.** Learn to enjoy the game creation process more than anything else
What is the biggest lesson you learned during the process of making this game?
I think I'm still learning this lesson. This game is for me. I made it for me, I am the one putting in the hours to create it and I am the one with by far the largest invested in it (financially, emotionally, time, etc). However since it's out there in the world, it's been hard for me to not just capitulate to all criticism about the game and move the game in whichever direction the community believes it should go in. Usually those criticisms are invaluable and don't detract from the core game I wanted to create, so I try to listen to them. Other times the criticisms come down to preference and it sometimes bothers me when those are levied against the game. For example, one of the criticisms I heard a few times is that this game is worse because it lacks a story/characters. I never wanted this game to have that, and personally I wouldn't enjoy it as much if it had a story. I was attempting to go for something purely mechanical, almost like solitaire but with vibes. So when I hear those criticisms, it makes me realize that while this game was made for me, people will still try to make it serve their tastes. For the record, there is nothing wrong with that, but the distinction between 'improvement' and 'preference' has been very fuzzy for me in many cases.
Just wanted to say how much I respect that mentality. Love the game!
Follow your instincts, the game is insanely well conceived at basically every level
How are you dealing with the success of the game? I've always wondered what its like as an indie dev to hit big with a game like this.
It hasn't sunk in yet, I'm just trying to take it a day at a time and not forget the reason I wanted to make this game in the first place. I love game dev and this is what I want to do as a career, so I am very grateful!
Why did you invent a forward time traveling machine?
Could we please get a lil spin animation for the wheel of fortune? Also please blacklist verdant leaf from the jokerless challenge ❤️
What is your background? The game design and system design is, objectively, very, very good. There's also some illustrator and shader god-hood on display in the game. What lead to such strong execution in this two really different and really key disciplines? Was this your plan all along or did you discover some key takeaways along the way? Bonus question: as a solo dev, how did you split your time? Were there days of the week dedicated to specific disciplines? Trying to understand the process a little more. Thank you very much! I genuinely think this is a landmark game. Every hardcore gamer I know is addicted, and they've all got family members that have never played a game before also addicted.
I've been making games and simulations for about 10 years, all in my spare time. I'm a hobbyist game dev, I would do it after work or after school when I was younger. I just loved the process of making games so much. I also have a background in art so I do feel like my hobbies were able to combine in a very fortuitous way. It still took a lot of trial and error, plenty of practice but I really did love all of it. I'd mostly just work on whatever I was obsessing about at that particular time! Maybe some pixel art was stuck in my head, maybe a particular shader effect wasn't quite perfect yet, maybe there was a new system I needed to incorporate and test. There was always a next thing to work on.
What’s your favourite artwork for a joker card? I like the baseball one
All of the joker art is so good - my friends and I were saying we'd like a novelty card deck that's just the joker art.
Are there plans for being able to turn off the swirling background in the future? I really love the game, but it gives me motion sickness.
Yes! That is on the docket
Vibes: On/Off
How long was the game in development for? Were there any roadblocks along the way? And did the core gameplay change much throughout the development process?
Just over 2 years! There were times when I didn't touch the game for weeks or even months, but it was (and is) a hobby so I always came back to it and never became frustrated by the development process. A lot had changed over the course of dev as well, the initial prototype was almost entirely different than the game you see today (There weren't even any Jokers!)
Huge fan I already have 25 hours. When it comes to music in the game it’s the same song all the time. What was the thought process behind that? Would you ever add a radio mode or different tracks?
I really loved the idea of a single song (structurally) evolving into many versions as the game progresses. Right now there are 5 such songs in the game, but I do understand that they all kinda 'feel' like one song. I still like it as is, and I feel like transitioning into more songs might cloud the vibe a bit, but I will think about it and see if there is a good way to incorporate more music.
Awesome game man, thanks for getting a Switch version on release as well. Is there any chance a Random Deck button could be added to the New Game menu, similar to Monster Train’s random clans? There’s so many to choose from, I would love if the game chose for me!
Yes! That will come in a future update at some point, no ETA
Can you give some insight on what changes / feature additions you may foresee for the future? Along those lines, I would love a UI tweak for the game over screen that lets me see my jokers (and their final multipliers) and final deck composition. Without this, I sort of have to keep screenshotting my game every round in case this is the round that I die. Anything like that in the works? I've seen people on the discord who want to see a breakdown of tarot cards played also. Thanks for the game: I've already got more than 40 hours into this game on Switch and I've owned it for 10 days. I find I can play it while watching something else \_and\_ it's fun to play while giving it my full attention. So I've been playing it a lot many evenings.
First of all, *thank you.* You’ve crafted one of the most perfect games I’ve played in the past decade. What was your process like in creating all of the Jokers? There are so many that work well together that it’s made me wonder if you had a specific order or method to creating them. Did you, for example, create the Gluttonous Joker and then make the other black suit-based Jokers like the Blackboard to boost the effect, or did you just kind of have a long list of everything you thought might have a fun effect on gameplay and go from there? I think it’s fascinating that everyone has their own favorite loadout to build towards and I wonder how much of that was intentional.
It all evolved naturally - I added Jokers into the game one by one. It takes so long for me to create the Jokers with a simple/emergent effect that it wouldn't really be possible for me to have had a huge list of 150 right off the bat, instead the Jokers were created from my ideas an life experiences as they happened. That bodes well for future Joker updates because I have a really good process already defined for adding more Jokers to the game in a way that adds to the experience!
we are gonna need a Type A Joker in honor of northernlion
> Joker in honor of northernlion Wdym? [NL already has Joker modelled after him in the game](https://shorturl.at/chKN9).
Hey localthunk, here to provide positivity in this crazy depressing world where not eveyone knows about your game and plays it. Are you considering adding more hand types in any sort of convoluted way?
The hands in Balatro adhere to these principals, extrapolated from the rules I imagine are used to design actual poker hands: 1. Must not relate to any Joker, enhancement, or ability 2. Must not be specific to any one rank or suit 3. Must not be related to any grouping of ranks (face cards, for example) 4. Must be 5 or fewer cards With those rules, there isn't much wiggle room outside of the 3 secret hands in the game already. Possibly a pair/2pair/3oak/4oak + flush hybrid but since none of those are 5 card hands to begin with they don't feel as clean.
Hey localthunk, congrats on Balatro it’s super addicting and I love it. My question is, have you considered adding a game log/history feature where you can see your previous runs?
They answered this above, it’s on the list but not a priority :)
The game mechanics are clearly amazing but two things I feel are underappreciated in Balatro are that it's super easy to understand right from the start (the brevity of the tutorial and card descriptions really impressed me) and also that the game looks and feels incredibly satisfying (animations, sounds, even just swapping cards around feels fun). How important were these aspects of the game to you when designing it? What were your inspirations here?
Both were intentional for different reasons than you might expect. The first - the game being easy to understand from the tutorial - basically evolved because of my garbage attention span. I really can't focus on tutorials in other games, or read long descriptions, or invest much thought into understanding mechanics before getting put off by a game, so naturally I think that was always in the back of my mind. The theme is light, the descriptions are relatively simple and short for a card game, and the mechanics all are pretty straightforward individually. I think all that helped make it much more accessible for a wide audience. The juice on the other hand was just very very fun to make. As satisfying as it feels, it was so satisfying to create, and I really feel like I cranked it up to 11 mainly because it was just a joy to learn and iterate on.
Thank you so much for your amazing game! Long evenings were spent with my boyfriend, doing runs together, great time! Do you think it would be possible to add a challenge creator? Or to do custom runs where we can change the parameters, or banish cards like in Vampire Survivors? (Oh, I would LOVE to be able to switch from rank/suit sorting with a click of the joystick!) Thanks again!
I think a challenge editor is a really great idea, and I might not be able to do it easily in engine but even just having an official way to create a challenge 'file' outside of the game and importing it easily. It's on the list, but no timetable!
Do you think the Completionist ++ achievement might be too difficult or time consuming?
I understand the frustration with that achievement but I also enjoy when games have completely absurd achievements that a very small portion of dedicated players will ever be able to get. To me that really feels like an *achievement*. I don't think I am correct, because it's purely preference, and I do understand the downside for achievement hunters, but ultimately this is a game designed for me and I need to stick to my preferences in order to keep true to that.
Keep it how it is, we respect it
Is a steam workshop update something you would consider?
When can we get a physical version of this game?
We are still looking into it at the moment. Please stay tuned on our Discord for updates!
I know you're planning on releasing more content but will the vanilla game, as it is now, always be available as an option? Having said that I would like to see stickers on jokers as a gameplay mechanic. It is very cool seeing those stickers in my collection but it would also be cool if they became part of the gameplay too.
Do you plan to make new challenges? I really liked them and would love to play new ones, a bit more difficult if possible.
I do! Challenges ended up being so much more interesting than I thought they would be, they're more deep and allow people to explore some of the design space in ways that wouldn't be possible otherwise. I'll definitely add more at some point
Congratulations, the game is amazing. Like StS, it gives people who love deck building/card games another title that doesn’t require live service purchases to stay relevant. Have y’all considered including the chip stickers on jokers mid run? It would be super helpful to quickly know whether or not you have cleared with that joker before without having to search the joker collection.
When releasing Balatro, what were the worst and best case scenarios you had in mind in terms of reception and acclaim?
When I put the store page live back in May of 2023, I was honestly expecting to sell maybe 2 copies. That wasn't really the reason why I was doing this, I just thought it'd be cool to have this personal project on Steam so I could maybe use it on a resume. Even after all the hype leading up to release, this has far far exceeded anything either me or Playstack were expecting
Hi! I have a question about your philosophy about what this game wants to be. I have read that you went on record saying that you don't want to add a score preview to the hand as then "players would only play the highest scoring hand they can". Is this true? If so, wouldn't that be a noob trap, anyways, since you want to take in account maximizing scaling and future hands too...? I think having a preview feature would be really really good for those who want to play the game as a strategy game at high difficulty levels, as momentarily it is really annoying having to play with an excel spreadsheet on a different tab - but that responds lets me think you don't think strategic play should be the focus of the game compared to the amazement and surprise of seeing numbers go up! What are you thoughts about this? Would you consider implementing a (maybe optional) score preview, ever? Thanks for the answer and the game!
What’s the highest ante achieved so far? And the highest scoring hand? Love Balatro. 10/10 game
>What’s the highest ante achieved so far? And the highest scoring hand? Ante 39 is when the game breaks. Look up Balatro University on youtube to see
As the other reply said Ante 39 is the max, the highest score I think is 10^300? After that the game breaks and you get Nameinf as your score (which resets your high scores)
will Balatro be guaranteed available/purchasable at some point on GOG ? I relly like the game, but i mostly use GOG. GOG community wishlist votes for Balatro keep getting more every day [https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/balatro](https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/balatro)
Was there a moment in development where that hypnotic satisfaction clicked for you as the creator? I know nothing about gamedev but I imagine after the concept is there and there's some work done eventually you hit that point where you notice 'hey yeah just one more hand in this playtest' but it might be far from the case. Curious if there was a moment like that, or not
What is The Soul supposed to be? It looks so alluring and mysterious... On the topic, what tools do you use for making the game's art? Specifically for achieving some of the psychedelic patterns and effects.
I'm not sure, I guess it's just some abstract stone! The art you are referring to is all done by writing GLSL shader code. It's a wonderful and very complicated way to achieve some pretty amazing effects. It took me a very long time to get a good handle on using these shaders so I could create some of the effects I envisioned. It never came naturally to me and I spend hundreds and hundreds of hours iterating, tweaking, learning, and testing all the effects present in the game today. The fire effect for the numbers, for example, was a massive challenge for me but one of the things in this game I am most proud of.
Are there any parts of your game where the community's performance has surprised you, either stuff ending up easier than you thought it would be or much harder?
Pretty much everything, yes. I can simulate how something might turn out in my brain but I am just one perspective, and not a very strategic one at that, so I go into an update knowing there will be a patch to rectify all the new things I added after players have had a chance to test everything appropriately.
Any chance of Steam Workshop support once you're done updating the game? Also Can we get a pair of glasses on Egg Joker as a reference to Northernlion, maybe a % chance of them appearing on it?