Balatro or Poker 2.0!

Balatro

The poker roguelike. Balatro is a hypnotically satisfying deckbuilder where you play illegal poker hands, discover game-changing jokers, and trigger adrenaline-pumping, outrageous combos.
_{Description taken from the official Steam Page!}

You can get it on steam from here BALATRO currently priced at 13.99€.

I've heard about this a couple of months ago while searching for indie games, I've seen videos about it with gameplay and reviews at didn't feel like trying it, seemed something boring, like pixelated solitaire (not trying to say solitaire is bad or anything).

And during these Christmas Holiday I've seen different blogs posts, youtube videos where different games were proposed to be game of the year or proposed for some sort of steam awards and in the comments I kept seeing this name Balatro. I was like how can this be proposed for an award, I need to check this for more details and even try it.

I went to check the Steam Reviews and those were all super positive.

The games with this many reviews and both Recent Reviews and All Reviews to be Overwhelmingly Positive are pretty rare. Over 90k reviews in under a year from the release date says a lot.

My first gameplay can be watched on my youtube link down below:

Now let's get to the game itself, I've installed and played through the first 3 Boss "fights".

The main idea behind the game is to create hands of 5 cards like in Poker, from the 8 cards you start with (probably later on you can get bigger hands) and with these 5 cards you play in your hand you need to create the best poker combination like:

one pair
two pairs
three of a kind
flush...

Each of the cards is worth an amount of points/chips, you can see in the GIF below there's a number above when hovering a card.

You will get the corresponding chips from a card only if it forms a combination with other cards (pair, flush, three of a kind etc.) otherwise it will only be discarded once the hand has been played.

Your main goal is to create best hands and based on combos you need to beat the blind, but you have some rules when playing, you have a set number of hands you are allowed to play, a limited number of discards and you get money $ for beating the blind.

Now the games increases it's complexity over time, because you can get Jokers and they act like some "super powers" that can increase different stats (like the multiplier) in hands, also tarot cards that can change your in-hand cards as an example.

Here is an example of a hand being played, a straight hand:

Each card is being counted and added to the score multiplier and at the end the Joker adds an extra 4x multiplier to the chips, the total hand ending in 972 chips where the blind was 450 meaning I beat the level.

This is how each "level" looks like, you have to beat small blind, big blind, and the hook before getting to the next one, you have the option to skip one of the first two for some reward if you want to and for the last one, the hook you will get some sort of handicap like (the heart cards are worth nothing or drop 2 cards from your hand after each hand you play).

Here is another hand being played, this time a flush.

And here you can see how a round with debuffed cards looks like, the heart cards are worth nothing. You can play them in your combinations but when the hand is being counted to see how many chips it's worth, those debuffed cards will be counted as 0.

The game is pretty fun, I want to see how far can I get during my first run and what other exciting things I might unlock, want to see how the game develops after getting multiple jokers to increase the multiplier and what other types of tarot cards exist.

I suggest you try it, the game is pretty small, I also think you can find it for mobile (iOS and Android) and for consoles, I remember seeing it for switch somewhere.

Also if you want to have some fun and laugh a little take a look HERE and read some of the reviews users left on their Steam Page.

Until next episode, I am wishing you a great day!

Thanks for leveling up with me! 🎮
If you enjoyed this post, drop a comment below and share your thoughts. Got any tips, tricks, or epic gaming moments of your own? Let’s talk! Until next time, keep grinding, stay sharp, and may your loot be legendary. 🚀💥

Note: All the images and GIFs used in this post were created from my Gameplay.