Managed my first win, which was ok Switch last night. Got my first win on PS5 tonight.

Nice. I’ve been trying to get big scores in my last few runs but haven’t got into the scientific notation yet. Been pretty good at building to ante 11/12 consistently though, I reckon I was one good joker away (the king x1.5) away from the big leagues last night.

You unlock Legendary Jokers from Arcana Packs, can’t get them any other way. The only one there you need to do anything specific for is Brainstorm which is easy enough - discard a Royal Flush, the rest you can just get from the shop. Locked jokers aren’t really stopping win runs, but if you want them you can check the collection for the criteria.

It’s a literal tab in the menu my dude, and they appear on the title screen with the unlock condition? There’s not really any mystery around it.

Sorry I spoiled some stuff. If felt it was so front and centre in the game that I literally had no idea it could be considered a spoiler. My bad. The game hides basically one thing from you - which I haven't spoiled! Enjoy finding it out!

The warm welcome I anticipated after roughly two years of posting maybe once every 8 months.

Winky smiley, and all that.

Also I should probably read menus more

Fuck this game. It has started to affect my dreams - it has a really weird way of infiltrating a dream I keep having - which seems to involve me trying to solve a problem and trying to solve it via Balatro's mechanics (particularly around the play and discard buttons) putting me into some sort of mental processing loop.

I'm absorbed by just playing , not particularly with winning and progression (although that is a huge hook). It's almost like a pastime like those tile matching games I get obsessed with too.

It has got me thinking about some video games, successful ones, have been based around a traditional game or puzzle that has been augmented into something that would not be practical to implement in reality.

You could take Tetris as the prime example of that - it's an old piece fitting puzzle or a variant on a jigsaw but it's been upgraded to something that wouldn't be able to be represented physically.

You could play Balatro physically but the calculations make it impractical.

Pacman is a bit of a stretch - mazes in puzzle books have been around forever - and implementing a digital maze solving game is at the basis of Pacman and other maze based games.  There's also the basic idea of chase and evade which has been physical for centuries.

They tap into something that is evergreen in its appeal - people still like playing card games and tile/jigsaw puzzles even though superior versions are available digitally. There is a certain kinetic satisfaction to playing those games. It's probably why board games have stayed around and if anything have made a comeback.

It makes me think if someone could come up with a suitably complex card solitaire (ie suit building) game would it be as successful as Balatro or Tetris for that matter. There's something about getting a patience game "coming out" and building on foundations as part of the gameplay is satisfying. If you see someone else play it's hard to resist not pointing out a move they have to make.

Of course Balatro has still to pass the time test - once its given up all of its secrets will it still be playable? For me I think it would be.

I'm a fanny. Was on a really great wee joker run with double Hack and a Hanging Chad and was busy farming polychrome glass 2s. Had just gotten a perkeo legendary joker so the next step was the voucher that gives 1.5x for each planet card you hold.

Run was popping off until on ante 10 I wasn't paying attention to score I had to get and didn't bother playing any glass cards "saving" them and died. I'm so annoyed at myself. Wee joker was up to about 3k chips

AndCallMeCharlie wrote:

Fine post Davy. Beating the decks is somewhat exciting (got the penultimate pack today, after 3 weeks of trying) but it's not what makes the game special.  I am aware of PC Building Simulator but haven't played it, it comes to mind as a comparison because that's what makes Balatro interesting and somewhat unique - it's the building of a points machine and the number of micro decisions to achieve that which is the joy.  StS had this somewhat but, as far as I remember, not quite as many routes.  The genius of Balatro is the intersections: planet, tarot and enhanced cards, coupons, chips, multipliers, discards, deck size, hand size and money.  Use these tools to build a machine and then decide how to tweak the machine as opportunities arise.

That paperclip game is on a similar theme - though there isn't the complexity that Balatro has. That paperclip game had it's hooks into me until I completed it over a weekend.

After 100 hours I just "discovered" challenges, hadn't looked at them before - cracking fun working through them

Got my 2nd win. Did it with the red deck. Got to Ante 10 which is a record for me.


Was cruising to a win with this set of jokers but got shafted on the ante 8 boss blind:


Had another sweet setup with the repeat facecards joker and the "all cards are facecards" joker making me retrigger every card. Was sailing along until I hit a boss blind that caused all face cards to be dealt face down - which meant every card was always face down. By the time I realised I had to ditch the all facecards joker I hard burned through one of my discards and I never recovered.

Ghost Deck remains my favourite for the inherent silliness it unlocks.

Hexed my first joker, which was an Eternal Swashbuckler. Then stumbled on an Eternal Egg. Perfect synergy. Shortly after, managed to turn it into a NEGATIVE ETERNAL EGG. Nonsense.

Killed my endless potential by picking up Hit the Road to unlcok it in the collection. Same as it ever was.

Spectral deck difficulty 5, had a fantastic club synergy, drawing about 12 cards a hand. Easy win. I misread the cards and fuck 2 flushes, miss a win by 4k points. Fml.