Balatro: amazing indie card game

[Carpet_pissr]

So I finally bought this after hearing so much about it. Apparently it's a one dude dev and it shows. But it's also one of the many one man games where somehow they get the magic formula just right. Absolutely brilliantly balanced, addictive, fun as hell...all the things I love in my games.

I would describe it as Slay the Spire, if it were poker-based.

And don't let "poker" scare you off, it only requires a very basic knowledge of a very few hands.

I think what I most love about this game is that it's freaking hard.

A real gamer's game, IMO, in terms of sheer quality of "fun" and design, etc.

Highly recommend this if you haven't picked it up.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2379780/Balatro/

[Hipolito]

I'm interested in this, too. I'm waiting for it to come out on mobile.

[Fishbelly]

Balatro is right up my alley. I played it non-stop for several weeks soon after it was released. I've still not been able to unlock all the decks--just not good enough yet. I'm tempted to look up strategy guides, but for once I've been able to resist and try to learn/figure things out on my own.

I'm eager to see what the developer does with the big, free update coming some time next year.

[LawBeefaroni]

Have way too many hours in this game. Lots of fun and perfect for short sessions.

Great on steamdeck too.

Only complaint is it's too easy to hit the wrong button inadvertently and blow a run.

[Fishbelly]

Only complaint is it's too easy to hit the wrong button inadvertently ans blow a run.

I rarely rage and yell at games, but I've lost more than one great run by hitting the wrong button playing Balatro. I've had to train myself to s-l-o-w down in critical situations.

[Skinypupy]

I love this game. It’s simple but incredibly addictive. Can definitely be frustrating when you don’t quite get the draw you need (I missed beating the deck at 100,000 by 1,000 once), but building a set of cards, upgrades, and jokers that racks up points is a blast.

I typically don’t enjoy roguelikes, pixel graphics, or poker very much, but this is just a brilliant combination.

[Carpet_pissr]

Only complaint is it's too easy to hit the wrong button inadvertently and blow a run.

ZOMG yes. Game could use an UNDO function.

TIL that I can't talk on the phone while playing this game. I got some absurdly OP joker (you only needed 4 cards for flushes and straights instead of 5) and blew the run early because I was distracted by my phone convo.

[Hipolito]

Balatro is now available on Apple Arcade, so I tried it on my iPad. I understood the appeal immediately, and thought I'd be hooked. I played a run, made it to round 13, and had fun. But I think that's enough for me. It has a fun feel and great design, but I don't feel that "just one more turn" compulsion.

[Skinypupy]

[double post]

[Skinypupy]

PS5 tells me I’ve spent 30 hours with this one, which is as much as I spend with most full-fledged games.

I’m intentionally not putting it on my iPad because I know I’d stay up too late playing it while lying in bed.

[hitbyambulance]

I don't feel that "just one more turn" compulsion.

in the other thread, i noted the same thing. i really was into this for about two weeks on the Steam Deck, now i just play a round every month or so.

[msteelers]

I’m playing this a lot on Apple Arcade. I’m glad I held off on getting the PS version as this feels like a perfect portable game for me.

My one complaint is you have to have internet access to play, which has been very unreliable for us after Helene. Outside of that though I’ve already spent hours on this game.

[RunningMn9]

Can’t unlock the last deck and it’s driving me insane. Have to win an orange stake to unlock it, but I’ve been stuck on purple stake for months now. So much rage.

[Archinerd]

I don't feel that "just one more turn" compulsion.

in the other thread, i noted the same thing. i really was into this for about two weeks on the Steam Deck, now i just play a round every month or so.

I like this game and many of the others in the rogue-like deck builder genre but so far they all have the same problem, I still like Slay the Spire better.

[Eel Snave]

According to Steam I've spent 172 hours in this game. So, it's fine.

[Zarathud]

Wow, I thought this was just hype. But it lives up to everything. Putting together a combination of Jokers and cards feeds the same addictive impulse that comes from Magic: the Gathering. But it doesn't require physical cash!

[RunningMn9]

Wow, I thought this was just hype. But it lives up to everything. Putting together a combination of Jokers and cards feeds the same addictive impulse that comes from Magic: the Gathering. But it doesn't require physical cash!

It’s tremendous fun, until you get stuck. I have been stuck on the Purple stake with the Zodiac deck for months. Every single time I’ve gotten to the last boss blind in ante 8, it’s the same boss power and I have nothing to use to change it. Randomly shuffles and disables my Jokers, which defeats all of my multipliers. It is incredibly frustrating.

[YellowKing]

I picked it up and it's quite fun, though I'm not a big poker player so it's not quite as addictive for me as it may be for card players. I'm also quite terrible at it, so there's that.

[Zarathud]

It scratches the Magic the Gathering itch to create card combos. I had a nice little King/Queen multiplier engine going on last night that could score 1 million points in a hand. Mainly because 20-25% of my deck was Queens and Kings.

[YellowKing]

I'm not addicted, I say again, as I pass the 4 hour mark.

[LordMortis]

Game has had its hooks in me for about a week. I started working on red antes but then decided to stay working on white antes until I unlock all of the cards.

Left to unlock:

400 cash (398 did not cut it)
4 7 of clubs (need to be played in a single hand d'oh! Again so close...)
Win a run in 12 or fewer runs( Means you can play only 3 non boss, I think. Made it to the 9 ante boss but was down to a 5 card hand, which unlocked another card. urgh. Can wait until I'm doing red antes anyway, where I'm almost always skipping the small blind anyway)
??? (presumed Legendary only through a lucky cosmic pull or whatever the booster called)
??? (presumed Legendary only through a lucky cosmic pull or whatever the booster called)

I've also got something like 2 undiscovered vouchers and 20something undiscovered jokers, still)

It’s tremendous fun, until you get stuck. I have been stuck on the Purple stake with the Zodiac deck for months. Every single time I’ve gotten to the last boss blind in ante 8, it’s the same boss power and I have nothing to use to change it. Randomly shuffles and disables my Jokers, which defeats all of my multipliers. It is incredibly frustrating.

There are a few lucky ways around this. Boss rerolls, Rare Joker that allows you to die once. Legendary Joker that disable boss powers. Etc... Of course I'm still doing red stakes, so I have no idea what I'll be in for.

...So right now I'm working on 5 of kind strategies. Specifically in an effort to play 4 7 of C. And using the no face card deck to do it, where in I always random in to Face Card bonus Joker Bonanzas.

Edit 4 7 of C have been played....

[Malificent]

I have way too many hours in this game. I’m working towards completionist+ — I’ll never make completionist++. As I work towards lots of golds, I’ve really started to embrace high card decks, where I have jokers that let me get high chip counts and high mults, regardless of what my hand is. That means I can use all my hands if needed, as versus other decks where unless I get lucky, it’s likely I will have at least one hand in a round that is suboptimal or not enough discards to achieve the hand I really need.

I’m still a super lame-o compared to the people that break the game score regularly.

Game has had its hooks in me for about a week. I started working on red antes but then decided to stay working on white antes until I unlock all of the cards.

Left to unlock:

400 cash (398 did not cut it)
4 7 of clubs (need to be played in a single hand d'oh! Again so close...)
Win a run in 12 or fewer runs( Means you can play only 3 non boss, I think. Made it to the 9 ante boss but was down to a 5 card hand, which unlocked another card. urgh. Can wait until I'm doing red antes anyway, where I'm almost always skipping the small blind anyway)
??? (presumed Legendary only through a lucky cosmic pull or whatever the booster called)
??? (presumed Legendary only through a lucky cosmic pull or whatever the booster called)

I've also got something like 2 undiscovered vouchers and 20something undiscovered jokers, still)

It’s tremendous fun, until you get stuck. I have been stuck on the Purple stake with the Zodiac deck for months. Every single time I’ve gotten to the last boss blind in ante 8, it’s the same boss power and I have nothing to use to change it. Randomly shuffles and disables my Jokers, which defeats all of my multipliers. It is incredibly frustrating.

There are a few lucky ways around this. Boss rerolls, Rare Joker that allows you to die once. Legendary Joker that disable boss powers. Etc... Of course I'm still doing red stakes, so I have no idea what I'll be in for.

...So right now I'm working on 5 of kind strategies. Specifically in an effort to play 4 7 of C. And using the no face card deck to do it, where in I always random in to Face Card bonus Joker Bonanzas.

Edit 4 7 of C have been played....

[LordMortis]

Down to the 400 cash and legendaries I just have to luck in to. I am having a bear of a time. Makes me really wish I just sold jokers when I stood at the edge of 400.

[RunningMn9]

There are a few lucky ways around this. Boss rerolls, Rare Joker that allows you to die once. Legendary Joker that disable boss powers. Etc... Of course I'm still doing red stakes, so I have no idea what I'll be in for.

Yeah, those would help. If I had any of them. I took a break and was working on the Plasma deck, and I got to the point where I was putting up 59 million points per hand. Unfortunately I only had 5 hands to make 1.2 billion points.

[LordMortis]

There are a few lucky ways around this. Boss rerolls, Rare Joker that allows you to die once. Legendary Joker that disable boss powers. Etc... Of course I'm still doing red stakes, so I have no idea what I'll be in for.

Yeah, those would help. If I had any of them. I took a break and was working on the Plasma deck, and I got to the point where I was putting up 59 million points per hand. Unfortunately I only had 5 hands to make 1.2 billion points.

Wow. Not even in that league of thinking yet. My best run had me bomb out at the 330 Million level.

[LordMortis]

Got up to 11 hands per blind. TIL if your deck goes to 0 cards you do not reshuffle.

[RunningMn9]

Got up to 11 hands per blind. TIL if your deck goes to 0 cards you do not reshuffle.

That seems remarkable. Most I’ve ever had is 5 I think?

[LordMortis]

Got up to 11 hands per blind. TIL if your deck goes to 0 cards you do not reshuffle.

That seems remarkable. Most I’ve ever had is 5 I think?

I was at a base 5 and then was getting a double plus three hands minus three discard joker from the double your left most joker joker. The beautiful thing there was after the blind started I could move my left most joker and double what chip/multiplier bonus was best for any given hand/table cards at the moment.

What's remarkable to me is ally'all getting into the billions. I've yet to beat the 330 million ante and it's rare I'm making in to millions or 10s of millions.

[RunningMn9]

If it helps, 1.2 billion is level 12 of the Plasma Deck with the black stake. Because of how that deck works, the points escalate quickly.

Had the joker to make 4 card flushes, with a rotating suit 1.5 multiplier, and then stacked 3x multipliers. Was ending up with 7000 chips x 7000 multiplier hands. Which was great for ante 11, but ante 12 escalated to 1.2B.

I think part of my problem is that I skip almost every small and big blind, just snagging those tags.

[hitbyambulance]

this was super annoying and took quite a few tries.... buuuut i finally got it. now i don't have to play with Black Deck ever again:

[Zarathud]

Checked Deck is All flushes, all the time

[paulbaxter]

Checked Deck is All flushes, all the time

Yep, Easiest deck ever.

The one with no face cards is quite a bit harder. Increased chance of getting straights, but hardly guaranteed. Plus the number of chips per card stinks the whole time.

[LordMortis]

I'm just now only starting Green Antes but I don't find the no face card deck to be that bad. With the deck only being 40 cards and never wanting face card jokers, I can build a customized deck much easier. You start paring down low cards and raising converting medium cards toward 10s and then shoot for 4 and 5 of a kind and if you are really lucky 5 of a flush.

OtOH, you have people up thread talking about playing for billions in ante and I always seem to get knocked out between 8 and 17 million no matter how good any of my decks are. I've made it to 330 million (and never come even close to the ballpark of hitting it) exactly twice.

I've been on PC game break with the new Arena season of BGA running but as the season wears on and I'm no longer competitive with masters at the games or tap out in the top leagues I'll be coming back to this game. There is still a lot of juice here for me even just working on the green antes.

[hitbyambulance]

yeah Checkered Deck wasn't a problem. i did struggle a while with Abandoned Deck, but now they're all unlocked. i can finally move on to raising difficulty, challenges and taking on the achievements i haven't gotten yet (making a run without using pairs AT ALL, breaking two glass cards in a single hand, <=12 ante speedrun, etc)

[RunningMn9]

Finally cracked the Purple Stake using the Zodiac deck. On to Orange stake.

[paulbaxter]

Took me several tries to beat the Nebula deck on base level, just d/t back joker luck. But I did beat it on an interesting combo. Vampire Joker for once became key. Vampire takes away all card enhancements and turns them into the magic percentage multipliers that are the key to everything. Usually they don't add up to much with vampire, but I got a joker that turned all played face cards to gold cards, then the one that said "all played cards are considered face cards." Those three pretty much took care of everything right there.

[LordMortis]

Took me several tries to beat the Nebula deck on base level, just d/t back joker luck. But I did beat it on an interesting combo. Vampire Joker for once became key. Vampire takes away all card enhancements and turns them into the magic percentage multipliers that are the key to everything. Usually they don't add up to much with vampire, but I got a joker that turned all played face cards to gold cards, then the one that said "all played cards are considered face cards." Those three pretty much took care of everything right there.

I got that combo a couple of times. It's fun. There are some other fun combos like a hoard of blue seals and the and the joke that increases multiplier by .1 every time you play celestial card. I was doing that with 5 of kind plus the voucher that made it so I always got my most played hand so I was boosting my 5 of kind jacks by two levels pretty much automatically resulting in an additional +.2 to my multiplier every time. I ended up with like a x16 multiplier on that card alone. But even then my best hands were "only" in the 100's of millions so the idea of a billion dollar round still seems so very far out of reach to me.

[msteelers]

I'm up to the orange stake with the anaglyph deck. I realized the key was to play most of the blinds and save the double tags for when a negative joker tag comes up, or something that raises a particular hand by 3 levels. I ended up having 18 jokers and made it to the 13th ante before crashing out. I also was able to get the "score 100,000,000 chips in a single hand" achievement.

I'm also working on the plasma deck and have that up to the purple stakes.

[LordMortis]

I'm up to the orange stake with the anaglyph deck. I realized the key was to play most of the blinds and save the double tags for when a negative joker tag comes up, or something that raises a particular hand by 3 levels. I ended up having 18 jokers and made it to the 13th ante before crashing out. I also was able to get the "score 100,000,000 chips in a single hand" achievement.

I'm also working on the plasma deck and have that up to the purple stakes.

18 jokers? I don't think I've ever seen more than 2 negative jokers in a run. Even doubled, that would be 4. The luck that would take would be huge.

[msteelers]

I'm up to the orange stake with the anaglyph deck. I realized the key was to play most of the blinds and save the double tags for when a negative joker tag comes up, or something that raises a particular hand by 3 levels. I ended up having 18 jokers and made it to the 13th ante before crashing out. I also was able to get the "score 100,000,000 chips in a single hand" achievement.

I'm also working on the plasma deck and have that up to the purple stakes.

18 jokers? I don't think I've ever seen more than 2 negative jokers in a run. Even doubled, that would be 4. The luck that would take would be huge.

With the anaglyph deck you get double tags whenever you beat a boss blind. I had those saved up and only skipped when the tag was for a free negative joker.