Best-Selling Poker-Themed Game Balatro Launches on Mobile

One of 2024’s biggest hit video games has arrived on mobile devices. On Thursday, September 26, the poker-themed, roguelike, deck-building game Balatro hit Google Play, Apple App Store, and Apple Arcade for the first time.

Game of the Year?

Originally released on February 20, 2024 on Sony PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Xbox, and Windows, and on March 1, 2024 for macOS, Balatro was an instant smashing success.

Priced at just $14.99, the game grossed $1 million in just eight hours. It sold 1 million copies in its first month and 2 million within six months.

Humankind’s activity is going to drop about 25%.

– Charlie Brooker, creator of Netflix’s “Black Mirror” series, about Balatro’s mobile launch

Developed by a man who goes by the handle “localthunk” and published by Playstack, Balatro has received some of the highest ratings of any game this year by fans and critics alike and is expected to appear on just about every Game of the Year list.

Charlie Brooker, creator of Netflix’s “Black Mirror” series, said that when Balatro releases on mobile, “humankind’s activity is going to drop about 25%.”
The mobile version of Balatro is available for $9.99.

Jokers Are Wild

Despite its poker theme, there is absolutely no gambling in Balatro. Poker is simply the mechanic, the scoring system that helps give the game its unique feel.
Rather, it is a strategic deck-building game similar to Magic the Gathering and Hearthstone.

Players start with a standard deck of 52 cards (different starter decks can be unlocked) and try to make poker hands to earn points (called “chips”). Earn enough points in a limited number of hands and you make it to the next opponent, or “blind,” as it’s called.

The game is single player and isn’t actually even a computer opponent, just a points goal in order to advance. Each card played is worth a certain number of points and each type of hand comes with a multiplier.

The key to the game, though, is collecting Jokers and other card upgrades that can synergize to boost scores exponentially. For example, the Gluttonous Joker gives you a +3 multiplier whenever a Club contributes to your score.

The Smeared Joker counts Hearts and Diamonds as the same suit and Clubs and Spades as the same suit, which would work well with the Gluttonous Joker and obviously help in the creation of flushes.

Players can only hold a limited number of Jokers, so decisions need to be made along the way as to which to keep and which to skip.

Randomness Plus Strategy Equals Replayability

The “roguelike” descriptor used to apply more to a certain type of role-playing game with procedurally-generated levels and character perma-death.

The term comes from a 1980 ASCII game appropriately called Rogue. Now, there are many types of roguelikes, from action games to turn-based RPGs to deck-building games.

The roguelike element of Balatro is evident in a few places. There are no “lives” – if you don’t score enough to win a round, that’s it, you’re done. Game over. No matter how strong of a deck you’ve built, you must start over.

Every game is random. They all have the same structure, but you never know what “boss blind” you will be up against, what Jokers and upgrades might appear, or what cards will be in the shop in between rounds. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you can’t find any good deck builds.

But, even though there is “perma-death,” as you progress and win games, more decks and cards can be unlocked. All unlocks are available forever.

Balatro is very easy to learn, but as you play, you begin to appreciate its depth and how much you really need to strategize to win. It is one of those games that routinely ends with the thought, “Just one more game – I can do better,” and before you know it, you’ve played for an hour.

And now it’s on mobile. Good luck.

Sources

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2379780/Balatro/
https://www.playbalatro.com/mobile
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balatro_(video_game)