Balatro

Balatro is an addictive yet incredibly frustrating game. The developers sought to turn the game of poker, already an incredibly luck-based game, into a roguelike. They have succeeded. The player is given a set number of poker hands to make a target score of chips. The player has a set number of discards to manipulate their hand toward this end, and over time the player can unlock the games roguelike elements to change the rules such as Jokers (typically alter how cards are scored or money is made), Planets (astrological cards that increase the scores of different hands), Tarots (Cards that offer the player a choice of altering card faces and applying bonuses), and bonus descriptors that add varying effects to cards when they are either played or held in hand while scoring. I wish I could give a middle-of-the-road reccomendation for this rather than the hard yes or hard no Steam forces us into. The game presents itself as a roguelike in which multiple builds are viable but that just isn't true, and a few bad RNG joker pulls can ruin an entire run. On top of that cards in your deck are delt out randomly for every hand, making it a challenge sometimes to even benefit from the roguelike elements of the game. If that wasn't enough, the game is so stingy with its money that the player has virtually no control over building up the set early in the run. Despite these flaws, it is incredibly addictive because of what it does right: adding new unlocks as you play, giving you enough time to explore what each roguelike element does, and showing you what COULD be possible with the right pulls and some dumb luck. I suppose the game is keeping in the spirit of Poker by giving the player as little agency as possible, but it's incredibly difficult even on easy mode to get anywhere in a run. It's not a game for someone who doesn't have patience to endure strings of bad runs through no fault of their own, but it can be very rewarding for those who do.