Tabulo is obviously trying to be like a chess version of Balatro, and in many ways, it excels at what it is trying to do. I have played all 10 boards, and I beat the wood board on all 8 difficulties, so I have experienced a decent chunk of the game.
Tabulo is a fun, engaging, chess rougelike that I would say is mostly worth your time. Runs typically take around 30-45 minutes, and each run feels fresh due to a variety of tiles, chess pieces, boards, and modifiers. Builds are fun to come up with, and there's a decent amount of synergies between items in the game to have many different types of builds.
In Balatro we have jokers, and in Tabulo we have tiles. While I wish there were more tiles (there are 100 in Tabulo vs 150 jokers in Balatro), the ones present are unique and offer some nice strategies for the player to experiment with. The balance between tiles seems reasonable, and I didn't notice any times that seem overpowered or incredibly weak. There are a couple of tiles that really try to emulate jokers in Balatro. For example, Gift (the one that gives a tile if you play the round with $4 or less) is basically a Vagabond. Character Select gives 1.5x scoring for pieces of a random rank, similar to Ancient Joker. Speaking of this, the scoring in this game, while not as flashy as Balatro, is still fun to watch and experiment with. Your pieces and tile placement are the real game of Tabulo, and fitting everything on the board in just the right way is lots of fun.
Planet, tarot, and spectral cards are replaced by coins. Again while not as flashy as the former, coins still offer you the chance to modify the board and pieces. Emerald, gold, and amethyst squares are all good; although I think ruby squares need a buff.
This game is not without faults. Tabulo desperately needs a way to either disable or reroll bosses (like Director's Cut or Luchador in Balatro). There are some bosses like the disable pieces with more/less than 3 neighbors bosses, or the downgrade the ranks of 3 pieces boss that are genuinely unwinnable with certain builds. There should be some way to give the player a chance to deal with these bosses. I found myself losing games simply because I rolled a bad boss and was given no opportunity to reroll.
I also found it strange that certain pieces, like the checkers piece, are only available on their respective boards. I think it would be a lot of fun to have the other types of pieces available on other boards. I also think having Perishable or Rental tiles could be a fun way to shake up the game (frozen tiles are fine, but it should not come with a locked sticker also).
Finally, having some type of voucher system similar to Balatro could do wonders for this game. I think vouchers would allow for more unique runs and some interesting long term strategies for runs. For example, maybe a voucher that increases the chance for higher ranked pieces in the shop, or a voucher that gives you an extra life, or a voucher that allows you to reroll the boss. There are also no Steam achievements in this game.
