Balatro

Today's world of roguelikes is what you might call a bit saturated. Every week a host of them arrives on the market, and every year only one or two are really worth mentioning.

It is therefore surprising that Balatro has appeared, as if out of nowhere, perfectly designed. In a genre where the majority of games take years to become full games (if they even ever manage to do so), Balatro manages to bend the rules of poker in a masterful way to become a game that will become a classic.

Balatro is a multi-layered creation. Each level is simple but they are all devilishly difficult and complex. Each game starts in a simple way. We are faced with a blind that we must complete by obtaining three hundred points. We start by drawing a hand of cards from our deck and must combine a maximum number of hands to score points. We can also discard up to five cards a limited number of times. The different types of classic poker hands will give you different scores based on the number of chips and their multiplier, as well as the value of the cards themselves. Thus, a full house will give us many more points than playing the high card. If we score more points than the blind across the hands played, we move on to the next round and the game rewards us with dollars.

This starts to get complicated when we beat the first blind and open the shop for the first time. Here, between blinds, we can spend the dollars the game rewards us with, although sometimes we can also skip the blinds to make a profit by skipping the shop. Going back to the shop, we will want to get a good Joker first, as they often boost our plays by increasing our tokens or multiplier or giving us multiple abilities and benefits while we have them in our possession.

These Jokers are the simplest form of expression when it comes to sculpting our deck. There are simple ones, such as one that simply adds 4 to our multiplier. There are also those capable of completely changing the way we play and build the deck. One makes it possible to create a straight with one less card; another makes hearts count as diamonds; another will give you money every time you discard a 3... The possibilities are endless and choosing the right jokers is often a big part of success in every game you win.

In addition to the jokers, we can also buy vouchers, planet cards and tarot cards. Vouchers are easy to explain, giving us a benefit throughout the game such as an extra hand or an extra discard for each blind. The planet cards help us to boost different hands. If you have a deck that tends to create colours easily (all five cards of the same suit), the Jupiter card will enhance that combination.

Tarot cards are consumables that will often come in handy when playing during the blinds. These give us opportunities to affect the game in a more timely manner, helping to get us out of trouble or to modify some of our cards. They are less necessary than jokers and planets when it comes to adjusting your long-term strategy and deck, but there's nothing like saving a game by turning three spades into hearts to reach the coveted straight flush and survive a tough blind.

Jokers, vouchers, planet cards and tarot cards are the four main elements with which we will improve the deck and increase our score. We can also buy envelopes with the possibility of getting different options for each item, but there is always the option that we will get something we didn't want, and we will have wasted our money. There’s nothing worse than buying a packet of planets and only getting hands that you don't use.

Finally, the last way to modify our deck is to buy normal or upgraded versions of the cards in our deck to make a customised deck. Have you used the three-of-a-kind a lot? Buy only Aces and you have a good chance of making a trio of Aces. This allows for absurd combinations that do not exist in poker such as five of a kind and the game takes this into account and scores them appropriately.

If you thought that simply creating a good deck would be enough to automatically win the game, nothing could be further from the truth. Every three blinds the Bet Level raises, equivalent to advancing through worlds in a traditional video game. When we reach Bet Level 8, we win the game. The big catch is that, in order to change the betting level, every three blinds we must beat a Boss who incorporates his diabolical requirements.

This is Balatro. Tremendously complicated to describe in writing, but exaggeratedly easy to understand just by playing a couple of games. Start a game, look at the first shop, imagine a possible winning deck and go as far as possible with it. A devilishly addictive gameplay loop, even more so given the average length of each game is about half an hour, making it easy to start another one.

With all these ingredients, Balatro becomes a feast. It's rare that a newly released game in a sub-genre that doesn't appeal to us is able to grab us, but with Balatro it has happened in a seemingly inevitable way.

Therefore, it must be said that Balatro is one of the best roguelikes ever to appear on the scene. With so little time on the market, it has already positioned itself alongside the big names in the genre. The fact that it is the first game by its creator makes it a true development prodigy from which we expect great things. Balatro is a game that deserves to be played. It’s priced right and is one of those games that make you wonder how no one ever thought of designing it before. Balatro means jester in Latin, but few games take their design more seriously.