Actually, Balatro Isn’t Really Based on Poker, Says Developer

Balatro is the brand new indie poker roguelike game that’s kinda come out of nowhere and has been making waves. But let’s back up a little bit. It’s being billed as a poker roguelike, but according to solo developer LocalThunk, that isn’t really the case.

In an interview with PC Gamer, LocalThunk mentioned that it was funny, because he doesn’t even really poker at all. Instead, Balatro was more so heavily inspired by the roguelike Luck Be a Landlord and the Cantonese card game Big Two. The latter is a game where you’re trying to score as many points as possible by making a good combination of cards from your hand, whereas the former is a roguelike that doesn’t have a specific enemy, and that was a big part of the appeal for LocalThunk.

Bring these two things together, and you get Balatro.

LocalThunk goes on to say that he does use a lot of poker terminology within the game itself, and these terms are meant to make the game feel more cohesive. Going beyond that, poker mechanics also serve as a familiar and more friendly entry point for players. That aside, though, LocalThunk reiterated that that’s the extent of it, and that he doesn’t actually care about poker all that much.

“I knew that poker would be a really good thematic tie-in that a lot of people could use as a launching point to understand some of the mechanics in this game. I could use the terminology in poker, I could use some of the visuals like blinds and antes and chips, and stuff like that, as a way to kind of make the whole thing feel cohesive,” LocalThunk says. “But I don’t play poker. I don’t really care very much about poker.”

PC Gamer

As someone who grew up in an environment where I was first exposed to Big Two, or dai di as it’s referred to colloquially, rather than poker, it’s no surprise that Balatro felt instantly familiar to me. In some ways, it’s even a good way of teaching you what the scoring poker hands are, and it’s easy to bring that knowledge over to the classic game when you eventually graduate from Big Two.

Going beyond the poker and Big Two scoring mechanics, Balatro also introduces modifiers in the form of Joker cards, which really help bring the whole roguelike experience together. Things start off simply at first, but as the score requirements go up, you’re then forced to rely on Jokers to create new multipliers and pathways to help you get to those astronomical numbers.

Balatro is now available on PC and mobile devices.