Balatrois a round-based roguelikecard gamein which you score points by building poker hands using your deck.
Playing cards and jokers can be equipped with enhancements that will increase your score.
Picking up a joker card that you dont quite understand often leads to a big a ha!
“Jimbo,” the face of ‘Balatro’LocalThunk
moment when it finally clicks, reeling in a whale-sized score.
Its another one of those crazy project things that I cant expect people to invest their time into.
And that got me thinking there was something here.
I had no following.
It grew from there, and the game kinda blew up.
Gambling to me, it preys on a misunderstanding of probabilities, the developer says.
I think its very predatory to hijack peoples brains to make money off them.
Im against microtransactions and I dont want to be predatory in the monetization of this game.
I like that its giving people a more intuitive understanding of what one-in-four actually means.
I just happened to have made the indie game that got really popular this year, he says.
Its a beautiful corner of the industry full of creative people that are super passionate about what they do.
To him, any press is good press.
Its still a tricky industry to get into on the low end.
Whats next for Balatro?
I imagine Ill keep adding content that I think players will appreciate, he says.
Im thinking I want to keep doing that until its just not doing it for me anymore.
Balatrois available now on PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, PC, macOS, and mobile devices.
