The year’s almost over, and The Game Awards has finally shown us their nominees for 2024’s game of the year. There’s been a lot of controversy surrounding some of them, particularly with Shadow of the Erdtree, but what I want to focus on is the year’s indie darling Balatro, which seems to be confusing a lot of people online. What exactly is it and why is it even this highly regarded?
More Than “Just A Card Game”
While yes, Balatro is indeed a card game at its core, it’s a bit unfair to discredit it as being just that. It’s a well-designed deckbuilding roguelike with such a low barrier to entry (the tutorial is fantastic and quick) and an insane amount of replayability.
With how addicting it is, you can easily find yourself a couple of hours deep into a session without even realizing it. Seriously, I’m weaving in runs as I write this, and I completely lost track of time. I just can’t stop playing it!
The Core Gameplay Loop
The basic premise of the game is that you have to beat “blinds” by reaching the specified number of chips that they require, up until you make it to the last “ante”. To use a more traditional roguelike comparison, think of blinds as rooms in Hades where you have to clear them before you can proceed to the next. It’s a bit more nuanced than that, but it should be enough to clue you in on how it works.
Every few blinds, you also have to face a “Boss Blind”, which can have varying effects that can potentially screw you over. Some will make you draw cards face down, while others might prevent certain card types or suits from being counted towards your chips.
In order to earn chips, you’ll have to play poker hands using the cards you’ve drawn. Whenever you face a blind, you can only play a limited number of hands and have a few chances to discard/redraw. These limitations will force you to formulate strategies on the go, and if you fail to hit a blind’s required score, the run will simply end.
Now, you might be wondering: “What if I don’t know how to play poker?” Well, you’re in luck. The game has a handy list of almost all of the possible hands you can play. There are a few secret ones to discover, since you have many opportunities to add more cards to your deck during each run.
By default, each card will score you chips equal to whatever number they have, with face cards giving 10 and aces valued at 11. In addition to that, each poker hand will also add a set number of chips and a multiplier that can be further increased through various means. On that note…
Jokers, Tarot Cards, and More
Throughout each run in Balatro, you’re going to encounter a wide range of other card types and even whole decks that can drastically change how you approach blinds. I’m not gonna go into too much detail, especially since I’m still in the process of discovering the entire collection myself, but here is a quick rundown of each:
- Jokers – These have their own slots and can apply various effects to each hand you play. By default, you can only have five of them at a time. Think of them as passive buffs that sometimes have major drawbacks you need to play around.
- Tarot Cards – These are consumables that typically enhance or change your playing cards and jokers. I’ll talk more about the enhancements after this list.
- Planet Cards – Planets level up your poker hands, increasing their multiplier and the base number of chips that they give you.
- Spectral Cards – They are similar to tarot cards, though their effects are usually more significant and can come with huge disadvantages.
These are randomly provided to you through the shop after clearing a blind or even by skipping whole rounds, and it’s up to you to figure out what synergies to go for. RNG can still ruin your run, but that’s just the nature of roguelikes, and you can always try to find ways to make bad luck work in your favor.
Wanna try your luck playing without using face cards? There are builds that benefit from that, and even an entire deck that encourages it. Trying to win a run by using just one poker hand? Believe it or not, you can build for that too.
Enhancements and Seals
On top of the card types mentioned above, your regular playing cards can also be granted buffs that can boost your chances of success. For example, you can make it so that a card grants you bonus chips whenever it is played, or you could make it so that it increases your multiplier by 1.5x if it stays in your hand.
There are also a handful of seals that you can take advantage of, and their usefulness will depend on what you’re trying to achieve with the run. Red seals, for instance, will trigger a card’s effect once more, and this even works with enhancements that require it to stay in your hand.
All of these mechanics combined make Balatro deceptively complex, and you really have to try it out yourself to see just what makes it so damn satisfying to play.
A Solid Game Overall
I don’t really know what else to say, honestly. Balatro is just a really good game that’s not trying to be anything more than that. It doesn’t have a tacked on story or some deep hidden message. It’s a pure roguelike experience with an incredibly addicting gameplay loop that’ll pump up your dopamine levels as you hit those high numbers.
While it isn’t necessarily my personal “game of the year”, it definitely deserves to be recognized alongside this year’s other big hitters. It has quickly cemented itself as one of my favorite roguelikes, and it’s eating up so much of my time that I almost forgot that there’s another indie game I’ve been meaning to try out. (Sorry, Dungeon Clawler, you’re next in my queue!)
