Balatro may have swept the awards this year, including securing a spot on our and Eurogamer readers' Top 50 Games of 2024 lists, but developer LocalThunk has taken the time to recommend other indie games that They caught your attention in 2024.
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“My prestigious Golden Thunk award for Game of the Year 2024 goes to Animal Well!” he wrote.
“Animal Well was an exciting experience. Full of style, secrets and making me feel like an imposter in this industry as a developer, Billy Basso created a true masterpiece.”
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The finalists were Dungeons and Degenerate Gamblers, described as a “strategic and wonderfully synergistic deck builder”, LocalThunk said that “people wrongly dismissed it as a Balatro clone, but this was announced before my game existed” – Arco, Nova Drift, Ballionaire, and the exceptional mouthwash from Wrong Organ.
“I didn't even know it was a horror game when I started playing it at 11pm one fateful night,” the developer said. “I was instantly hooked, and both the world it created and the poignant message woven into the game remain vividly etched in me months later.”
LocalThunk's stellar Balatro earned several accolades at last month's The Game Awards, including best mobile game, best debut indie game, and best indie game.
The anonymous solo developer recently said that there is a part of him that regrets the game's success, as he misses when creating games was just a hobby.
When asked in an interview if he regretted Balatro's success, he responded: “Honestly, yes. Don't get me wrong: this has changed my life in so many amazing ways. I'm very grateful. But I miss that moment before.” . It was simply a hobby that recharged my batteries. “Sometimes I think, 'Maybe I would have been happier if I had never released this game to the public.'”