Balatro

Idk how they managed to make crack digital but it's just as addictive and somehow perfectly legal.

[b]My Playtime:[/b] 229.5h (100% achievement, finished the game for too many times to count) [list][*][i]First run[/i]: 3.1h [*][i]All decks in the easiest difficulty and all challenges[/i]: 38.2h [*][i]Completionist++ and Completionist+ except black deck[/i]: 228.3h [*][i]Completionist+[/i]: 229.5h[/list] [b]Grindy Achievement(s):[/b] Yes (2 achievements). [b]Optional Achievement(s):[/b] Yes (27 achievements). [b]Difficult Achievement(s):[/b] No. [h1]Intro[/h1] [i]Balatro[/i] is a card game where you play [i]Poker[/i] hands. The goal is to score as high as possible to fulfill the score needed to pass each round. The game can be played almost endlessly, up to naneinf at round ~73, although the official end is at around round 24. [b]Pros:[/b] - 15 decks with different playing styles - Challenges to prolong your playtime [b]Cons:[/b] - Can get boring if played continuously - Takes time to learn (and get addicted to) [b]Specs[/b] AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, 16GB RAM, AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT [h1]Should you buy this game?[/h1] [i]If you enjoy playing card games and doing maths, this game is for you, although the game can be quite expensive if you are not aiming for 100% or intending to play it for a long time.[/i] [hr][/hr] [h1]In-Depth Review[/h1] [h3]The Game[/h3] [b]Gameplay[/b] Assume that you are playing a single-player poker. Your goal is to play poker hands to get enough scores to finish a round. That is [i]Balatro[/i]. [i]Balatro[/i] provides 15 decks, each with different effects. Red deck allows you to discard more times, blue deck allows you to play more poker hands, and many more. Some decks make the game easier, others make it harder. At the beginning, you can only play with the red deck, and more will unlock as you finish the game with more decks or do it at a higher difficulty. Scoring is done by poker hands. Each hand gives different chips and multiplier amounts, with rarer hands giving a higher payout. Increasing these chips and mults is the main meat of the game, and can be done through many ways. Planet cards can increase your poker hand level, which will increase both chips and mults by a small amount. Some joker cards can also increase them, with or without a special condition. Some tarot cards can upgrade your cards to give some chips or mults. Despite the various ways to increase it, using all of them is vital if you want to survive, especially in the higher difficulties. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3563958615 There are 150 Joker cards in the game, each having different effects. Some can give you more money, which you can spend in the shop to buy upgrades, some can increase your chips and/or mults, and others can give other effects. Jokers are divided into several rarities, with higher rarities usually having better effects. Most decks have 5 joker slots, which are upgradeable if you buy a certain item. Finding the right synergies between the jokers is the key to winning the game. Your build depends on RNG. Your fate will also depend on it if you are not skilled enough. After finishing each round, you'll be directed to the shops where you can spend your money—which you earn based on your performance in the last round—to buy upgrades. What's in the shop is random. There are two cards and two packs, which can contain either joker, planet, or tarot cards, and one voucher that will give additional perks to your gameplay. You can reroll them, provided that you have enough money, but what shows up will always be random. [b]Strategy[/b] [i]Balatro[/i] is all about synergies. With how randomized the shop is, you need to find a way to make one in each play. Luckily, the game has so many joker combinations that you can use, and both planet and tarot cards make it possible to win the game even without any jokers. Not using either Joker, planet, or tarot cards will cripple your run greatly, though, especially if you are playing in higher difficulties. That being said, sometimes, the synergies are not enough. The main key in every run is to have enough chips, mults, and xmults that will multiply your existing mults. However, finding one of them might be hard in some seeds, forcing you to be creative. This often turns the game into RNG, where you need to find a seed that gives you these jokers before you can win, especially if you are not skilled enough. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3454861797 Other ways, like pivoting into another build mid-run, can sometimes save your run, although this might be hard to do if you are not skilled enough. I myself usually just stick with one build and find out whether I'm making it or breaking it later. This tends to be the deciding factor of what makes the game frustrating or addictive, giving me a love-hate relationship with this game. [b]Length and Difficulty[/b] Technically, you can finish each run in 1-2h, but I nailed my first win after playing for 3.1h. I spent the rest of my playtime to 100% the game. The game seems to find ways to prolong its playtime. It has 15 decks to play with, and although each deck has a different effect, most played similarly after the first few rounds. However, you need to finish the game with a particular deck to unlock a higher difficulty level of that deck. Note that there are 8 difficulties in the game, so you can imagine the number of wins that you need to do just to unlock everything. The game also offers challenges where you have some limitations in a seeded run. It helps to learn more about the game, finding new synergies from jokers that you would never try otherwise. However, they can be boring since, again, all decks are played similarly. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3482189022 For achievement hunters, the game is painful to 100%. You need to win the game with all decks at the highest difficulty, and then win the game with all joker cards at the highest difficulty. The latter one can easily take 200h since there are 150 joker cards that appear randomly. Moreover, since the game can be very repetitive, it won't be good to attempt this in one sitting. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] [i]Balatro[/i] can be a hit or miss for some people. Those who like cards and maths will like it, while those who hate repetitiveness will hate it. You can finish all that the game has to offer in ~3h, although it demands you to play for longer. The game's nature forces you to play the game over and over, trying different synergies and cards until you find no more, or get bored and try playing it with a mod to experience everything all over again. That being said, the game is not for everyone. Achievement hunters will definitely suffer to 100% it, while players who just want to play the game a few hours a day will find it to be worthwhile. That being said, the game can be quite expensive if you only aim for the first win, so it's better to be played by those who plan to spend a longer time with this game, trying to squeeze out everything that the game has to offer.

You can see my hours. This is not a multiplayer game. I did not mod it until I 100% it, then cut off the mods to beat the 100% the base game on another profile, for a second time. Buy this game. Play this game. Its the best roguelite I've ever played.

I went into this game with zero prior knowledge of poker. Turns out, that didn't matter! Before I got this game, I honestly couldn't understand all the reviews claiming how addictive it was. After awhile of eyeballing the game, I finally caved and got it and I see it now. This game is simple, satisfying, addictive, and has an amazing replay value. As someone who was initially skeptical about playing Balatro for the longest time, I highly recommend. It might actually be my current favorite card game!

Took me 104h to reach my goal: win a gold stake. Just played a 4h sprint, didn’t even see time passing. As someone who struggle to focus, this game showed me that I, in fact, can lock in for long period of time. On a deeper side, this game has been a real solid base to bring structure back into my life. Thank you LocalThunk.

When the game makes you so mad you lowk start to understand why people kill each other

高中时代在宿舍偷偷用非智能机玩经典纸牌，玩了不知道多少小时，熟练到两三分钟就能赢下一局，移牌的手比脑子还快。 十几年后的现在，还是会在夜深人静的时候打牌，游戏从Solitaire变成了Balatro，慢慢打过了金注也玩了一点挑战模式。 我的人生好像改变了很多，又好像什么都没变。

Very Nice game. I never played cards or solitaire but this is addicting, it takes time to understand different aspect but once you learn it its crazy fun. Card game with rogue like elements.

霉笔不配赢

The base game of Balatro is absolutely addicting and I cannot recommend this game enough, having played it on PC, Xbox, Switch and Mobile. I absolutely cannot wait for the expansion for this game, but if you haven't checked out any mods yet, it is an absolute must. The community for this game is amazing and the work they have done is phenomenal. The quickest way to mod your game is to visit BalatroMP.com and run the Multiplayer Launcher, which will automatically set you up with the required dependencies for most mods (Lovely and Steammodded) and the Multiplayer mod itself, which is genuinely so much fun to play with others both casually and competitively. The rest of the mods you want can be dragged and dropped into %appdata%/Balatro/Mods For QOL mods, I personally run the following; Handy is amazing for card selection, allowing you to hold down your mouse and drag which cards you want to select. Joker Display is great for quick showing the effects of jokers. Saturn allows you to raise the game speed even higher and skip animations, making the game play faster in the higher ante's. Talisman removes the scoring limit, meaning you can go above naneinf. Cryptid, TOGA, Pokermon and Yahimod are my personal favourite overhauls, all adding a lot of content to the game. These are a mix of a challenging but fun experience, and absolute unbalanced insanity that eviscerates the Number Goes Up part of your brain. Other cool mods I use are the Blueprint mod, which changes the art of the Blueprint card to match the card it's copying (Which is useful cause I honestly forget which card i'm copying sometimes). The Card Sleeve mod, which allows you to add an additional decks effects to your chosen deck, Malverk allows texture changes, which I personally use to turn Card Seals into actual Seals, and Deck Builder, which lets you make your own deck with your own rules. There are loads of other mods available, but I wanted to mention some of my personal favourites to get people started if they haven't experienced this game modded yet.