LocalThunk, the pseudonymous lead developer of the amazingly successful deck-building, roguelike, poker, math simulation game Balatrohas long given the impression that it understands that its game, having sold 2 million copies, might be a bit also good.
To that end, LocalThunk has created the game specifically No about actual gambling, microtransactions, or anything of the sort. Shortly after its February 2024 release (but after it had already caught one of us), some stores removed or re-rated the game due to concerns about card and chip themes, forcing him to explain his dividing line between random number generation (RNG), risk/reward mechanics, and actual gambling. He literally wrote in his will that the game cannot be used in any type of casino or gambling establishment.
So LocalThunk has done everything possible to ensure Balatro I won't waste people's money. But time? If you're a Balatro If you're already a gaming fanatic or are more of a mobile gamer than a console or PC gamer, your time is at stake.
Please note that in the trailer, at the 36 second mark, the “Trailer Ideas” appear. Balatro on mobile, including “Ad Balatro “Now it's a Soulslike,” “Romanceable Jimbo Reveal,” and “It's like that apocalypse movie with the meteor but Jimbo is in the sky instead.”
Stack of games
Even more Balatro Content is coming
The mobile version of Balatro is one of three updates LocalThunk has planned for 2025. A gameplay update is still expected sometime this year, which will be completely free for owners of the game. It won't feel like a different game, or even a 1.5 release, LocalThunk told Polygon last month, but “expanding that vision to, I think, its logical limits rather than changing direction… [M]“It’s about filling the design space that currently exists and then extending that design space in interesting directions that I think people will love.”
What else is coming? Perhaps “Friends of Jimbo,” announced today on Balatro’s X (formerly Twitter) account, will tell us something. It’s worth noting that LocalThunk says it developed the mobile ports itself.
As we noted in our attempt to explain the current popularity of roguelike deck builders, Balatro is the first game to be properly published by LocalThunk. He claims not to have played any such game before creating it. Balatro but he was fascinated by the streams of Luck is being an ownera game about “using a slot machine to win rent money and defeat capitalism.” That game, plus influences from the Cantonese game Big Two and the basics of poker (another game LocalThunk says he didn’t actually play), gave birth to the time-melting game as we know it.
BalatroIn turn, they took off with streamers, who would break the game with seeds, reach 30 quintillion scores, or simply keep coming back with everything they'd learned.
Several Ars writers have continued to return to Balatroover and over again, ever since its release. It's such a compelling game, especially for its indie-scale price tag, that none of us could think of a way to write an independent “review” about it. With its imminent arrival on iPhones, iPads, and Android devices, we need to re-educate ourselves on how much time there really is in each day and what kind of accomplishments our families and communities need to see from us.
Maybe the game doesn't sync across platforms and the difficulty of having to start over is enough to prevent a noticeable regression. Maybe.