Help me, I'm addicted to Balatro! This game is so much fun.
While the central premise revolves around you playing poker hands to meet certain score thresholds for monetary rewards, like any good roguelite the most important aspect of the game is the shop. Here you can level-up your hand-types, purchase cards to add to your deck and, most significantly, purchase joker cards that offer buffs and power-ups of all shapes and sizes. Jokers add to your chip count, score multiplier or offer you extra goodies for playing a certain way.
The devilishly genius thing about Balatro is that every joker card is contextually useful. The only other roguelite games I've played have been action-oriented (i.e. Hades) where some power-ups are evidently superior to others but that's not really the case here. Some jokers are immensely helpful early game but quickly drop off and need replacing later while others really bolster your late game but take a while to kick into gear. Making the judgement call about when to swap and change your joker stack (you're limited to 5) is a massive and satisfying part of what makes the game so addictively fun. RNG plays a massive part in any given run but being tactical about how you upgrade your deck and which jokers you choose plays a big part in a successful run too. When you pull off a great build you're rewarded with huge scores, a little dopamine rush for all of your strategizing and risk-taking. When you sell a joker and your run goes sour, you're punished for making a brazen but ultimately wrong decision.
I am absolutely loving Balatro thus far and find the gameplay loop scratches a very specific itch that no other game has for a while.
It's worth mentioning as well that the presentation is entrancing too. The graphics and sound design are minimalist but the sprite work on all of the cards is lovely and the music loop is seemingly endlessly relistenable.
While the central premise revolves around you playing poker hands to meet certain score thresholds for monetary rewards, like any good roguelite the most important aspect of the game is the shop. Here you can level-up your hand-types, purchase cards to add to your deck and, most significantly, purchase joker cards that offer buffs and power-ups of all shapes and sizes. Jokers add to your chip count, score multiplier or offer you extra goodies for playing a certain way.
The devilishly genius thing about Balatro is that every joker card is contextually useful. The only other roguelite games I've played have been action-oriented (i.e. Hades) where some power-ups are evidently superior to others but that's not really the case here. Some jokers are immensely helpful early game but quickly drop off and need replacing later while others really bolster your late game but take a while to kick into gear. Making the judgement call about when to swap and change your joker stack (you're limited to 5) is a massive and satisfying part of what makes the game so addictively fun. RNG plays a massive part in any given run but being tactical about how you upgrade your deck and which jokers you choose plays a big part in a successful run too. When you pull off a great build you're rewarded with huge scores, a little dopamine rush for all of your strategizing and risk-taking. When you sell a joker and your run goes sour, you're punished for making a brazen but ultimately wrong decision.
I am absolutely loving Balatro thus far and find the gameplay loop scratches a very specific itch that no other game has for a while.
It's worth mentioning as well that the presentation is entrancing too. The graphics and sound design are minimalist but the sprite work on all of the cards is lovely and the music loop is seemingly endlessly relistenable.