Poker-themed roguelike videogame Balatro has won both the ‘Best Indie Game’ and ‘Breakthrough Award’ at the 42nd Annual Golden Joystick Awards.
The game was created by a Canadian developer known online as LocalThunk, and has been released on multiple platforms including Steam, PlayStation 4 and 5, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One and Series X/S, along with more recent mobile ports for iOS and Android.
If all you’ve seen of Balatro is a still screenshot, it’s probably very confusing that this game is receiving so much hype. But what it lacks in cutting-edge graphics it makes up for in fresh, fast-paced gameplay which keeps players coming back.
And it’s all based around poker.
How to Play Balatro
A roguelike is a fairly liberal gaming term for a specific genre of videogame. In roguelikes, you’ll move through levels which have an element of random generation, equipping yourself with things like ammo, armor, and special skills which make each run unique.
In Hold’em, you always receive two hole cards and up to five community cards, but there are a million variables which make every hand unique. Similarly, Balatro gives you a completely new experience every time you start a run.
It’s a solo game and there’s no bluffing involved. You begin with a deck of 52 cards and have to meet certain chip thresholds to beat the ‘Blinds’. The three Blinds are:
- Small Blind
- Big Blind
- Boss Blind
Along the way, you’ll also earn in-game cash, which can be used to unlock useful items in the shop.
Your challenge is to reach a certain number of chips to qualify for the next round. To do this, you make a series of hands, each containing up to five cards. Higher-ranked hands like full houses and flushes give you a higher base score than pairs or high cards. There are also a bunch of bonus cards which can multiply your chips.
Once you complete three rounds, you’ll move up an ‘ante’. If you complete all eight antes, you then take on a Finisher Blind to beat the game. There’s also an endless mode, where you just keep going.
The App Store describes Balatro as “a magical mix of card games like Solitaire and Poker”, but perhaps it would be more accurate to include slot games in that mash up. There’s a huge element of luck, from which cards you’re dealt to the early jokers you can pick up. Hit the right cards and you’ll breeze through the early stages.
When you lose, you have to start over. All of your power-ups are lost, although there are a few unlockables which remain available for future runs. For example, you can start with a special deck which gives you an advantage, such as the Yellow Deck which starts you off with an extra $10.
Balatro vs Poker
Balatro uses poker hand rankings to score points, but it’s nothing like a regular hand of Texas Hold’em.
Earning points in Balatro is primarily based around the use of non-traditional cards. When you begin the game, you have space for up to five jokers. Each of these has a special power-up which can add to or multiply the score of your hand.
Combining jokers can lead to a massive increase in points. For example, if you hold the Fibonacci card, your score will be multiplied by eight when you play an ace 2, 3, 5 or 8. Couple that with the Hack joker, which retriggers 2s, 3s, 4s and 5s, and you’re in a situation where any 2, 3 or 5 will multiply your score, get retriggered, then multiply it again.
Trust us – once you play it, it’s a lot more intuitive than it sounds.
The exciting thing about it is that players will naturally learn poker hand rankings, as these are the basis of every hand you play. And, even though it’s a wild game, it does teach you some of the skills you’ll need to play poker.
You have two main options when looking at your hand: Play or Discard. Discarding is useful if you’re close to hitting a strong hand. For instance, if you have eight cards in your hand and four of them are hearts, you might discard the other four and aim to hit a flush.
But it doesn’t always go to plan. Over time, this teaches players to play in such a way that, if they don’t hit the ideal hand, they have a back-up. Just like a missed river.
Hand reading, knowing hand ranks, risk management, and understanding the likelihood of hitting a premium hand are all useful poker skills which Balatro can help amateurs learn. So long as they don’t then head to the Hold’em tables expecting jokers and multipliers.
What Next?
Balatro could disappear into obscurity as quickly as it rose to the top. That’s the nature of indie games – even award-winning ones. But if it has staying power, history would suggest that we’ll see tournaments with cash prizes on the line.
Hearthstone, a strategic card game from World of Warcraft creators Blizzard Entertainment, proved that there’s a big market for this type of game. The official Hearthstone World Championship carries a prize pool of $1 million.
Balatro’s design is set up for solo play, but there’s no reason two players couldn’t compete for the most chips or the fastest run. With a bit of work from the developer, the game could definitely be rejigged for players to take each other on directly.