Alright let's get some Balatro thoughts down, since I doubt I'll return to it. I put in 20-30 hours and completed up through orange stake, but not gold. Didn't mess with the challenges much but they seemed fun. For me, this is a really well-designed, fun and addictive rogue-like/lite/who cares (I know there are people who care about the like/lite distinction, but I sure don't, sorry). Like most rogue-likes (all that I've played), there's never really a satisfying ending, I just play and play more and more runs, and everything in the game slowly becomes more and more routine and less novel. Eventually the fun wears away and so I just unceremoniously end my session one day and never pick it back up. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with some games working like this, but it does make it so by the time I'm through with it my opinion has soured a little since I've played it until I'm burnt out and not enjoying it anymore. I end up quitting rogue-likes sooner than I used to do that I can avoid that feeling, I wasn't truly burnt out on Balatro, but I was starting to see the signs, IE: I didn't want to play out my run if I didn't get the upgrades I wanted right away, I preferred to just restart.

Anyway, if you're on this website reading this, you probably already know what Balatro is and why people like it, so I'll just say, yeah they're right, it's a well designed game. I enjoyed it quite a bit.