Poker-theme Balatro has an ace up its sleeve
Highly addictive and infinitely replayable, Balatro (Latin for jester) is a magnificent, unique take on the roguelike deckbuilder genre. In a world of inferior Slay the Spire deckbuilder clones, taking those same mechanics and applying them to an actual deck of cards is pure genius.
In poker, jokers are known as wildcards and in professional poker aren’t used at all.
Balatro takes those unused cards and turns them into one of the central mechanics. Getting the right combination of joker cards into your deck is key to making an extended run, and there are 150 possible jokers, each of which adds its own unique game mechanics.
Balatro is based on poker, but all you really need to know is the ranking of hands. Each run starts out with a standard deck of 52 playing cards. You’re dealt eight cards and must make the highest-scoring 5-card poker hand you can to earn enough chips to beat the “blind,” or score for that level. Each poker hand gives a certain number of chips and a multiplier. For example, at the start of the game a pair gives 10 chips with a multiplier of 2, for 20 chips. And three of a kind gives 30 chips for a multiplier of 3, for 90 chips. And then each card also gives points (11 for aces, 10 for face cards, 9 points for a nine, and so on). Each hand the chips are added up, then multiplied and that’s the score.
After each blind is defeated, a few dollars are earned and a shop becomes available with jokers and other special cards that will start turning the game on its head.
Early on, I found myself losing quite handily, but eventually I got a good combination of jokers and other card upgrades to make a long run. The key is to get cards that boost chips and stack those multipliers, like getting a joker card that gives all hands a 15x multiplier, another joker that gives a 20x multiplier to three of a kind hands, then another that gives a 20x multiplier to each ace. Suddenly, a simple three-of-a-kind hand scores far more points than even a straight flush would.
Every third match is a “boss battle” with some special stipulations, such as making all hearts worth zero points or dealing cards face down. Sometimes the game can seem impossible. The blind gets higher and higher, starting from 300 chips and quickly swelling. But each round also brings another chance to grab a new joker or upgrade, like permanently changing a bunch of cards to all of one suit, making flushes easier or combining a joker that gives a bonus for all face cards with another joker that says every card counts as a face card.
The more the game is played, the more various decks, cards and upgrades are unlocked, leading to more wacky combinations. You’d think all the variations would get confusing, but the game is simple to learn and starts with the basic poker rules everyone knows, but after every win, a twist is added with the various wild cards. You
feel a real sense of progression, and there’s skill in figuring out the perfect combination of cards that will lead to victory. It’s like a puzzle game with constantly evolving rules.
I also like the fact that this is a game that can be played in short bursts, and it’s perfect for handheld consoles like the Nintendo Switch or Steam Deck. Also, it’s cheap at just $15 for something that can give hours upon hours of enjoyment.
I know I’m not alone in enjoying Balatro’s satisfying gameplay loop — in its first month, the game has already sold more than a million copies.
It should be noted that while poker-themed, with references to blinds and antes and chips, there’s no actual gambling or wagering in the game. Chips are just used to keep score and dollars are only used for special cards during that run. There’s also no microtransactions of any kind for this single-player game. Its addictive nature comes entirely from it being fun to play.