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Definitely earned it, we're already seeing a wave of indie games trying to capitalize on it's success.
Some games have a major impact on the game market by creating or popularizing a subgenre. Some previous examples are Slay the Spire, Stardew Valley, and Vampire Survivors. I think Balatro will be the same, and we'll see a huge number of games over the upcoming years trying to follow in it's footsteps.
Arguably appropriate with its success and the already burgeoning influence in new games. I loved the demo at next fest, played for hours and knew it was an instant buy. And I loved the full game, for about 5 hours. Once you realize that it really is just a restart simulator due to literally unwinnable seeds, the illusion breaks, or did for me. As a roguelite fan, I also didn’t enjoy the lack of run shaping tools and abundance of bloat jokers that only got worse as you won more. Very addictive and solid game, but I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a “bait and switch” from demo to 1.0 quite like it.
You probably just need to get good. Iirc Balatro university said that about 80% of seeds are winnable on gold stake.
That means that roughly 20% arent. That's 1 in 5, and that's pretty ridiculous.
But hardly a restart simulator. That's 4 good 2hr+ runs to one unavoidable 15 minute restart (or more likely you losing). That's a great rate. And as the person above you was pointing out, it's not that you get a string of unwinnable seeds, you just aren't good enough at the game yet. If you don't enjoy losing and retrying with better knowledge and being better at the game then rogue-likes just aren't for you and that's fine.
Only thing is, it’s not about getting good, or wasn’t for me. Once that info came out, the illusion is shattered. In other roguelites I play, I always knew or thought I had a chance to an extent. Learning there even exist unwinnable seeds just killed my drive to play is all. It’s not about getting good for me. The game part went away when I learned that. Add that on top of the other issues that decreased my fun and it was a wrap for me.
On gold stake though. If you just want to try different wacky strategies, don't select mac difficulty.
Agree there should be more knobs to tweak a run for the hardcore folks (I am not one of them).
Balatro is addicting and well conceived. I actually think it's a great phone game, and I don't think I'll play it on PC really at all. I'm not sure I'd give it GOTY, but if you've been on the fence about this one, I recommend you give it a shot. The dev deserves every penny of the full price.
The Cryptid mod is pretty much the only reason I play on PC.
Looks like they don't like custom ROMs. shrug too bad for them I guess.
It was my most played game this year and I played it entirely on Steam Deck.
Pff, Balatro has nothing on Jimbo's Game.
How long did it take to click for you? I’ve played for like 20-30 mins. I don’t even really understand the rules.
I had some prior knowledge before playing by watching someone online play the demo quite a bit, so it didn't take me long to figure out. The major problem I have is that I don't remember which hands are better between straight and flush and around there, but that's easily mitigated by the run button thing on the side.
What part has you stumped?
Value of the hand is ranked like poker. Each hand is worth a number of chips and a multiplier. The face value of cards scored add to the number of chips. You have a set number of times you can discard per round and you use those to throw away cards and redraw trying to get a good hand. You have so many hands per round to try to reach the goal score. Everything else tweaks those variables to get higher scores per hand, which is necessary because the round goal quickly becomes impossible with the base deck and scores.
After 30 minutes I suppose you know all that...
After my first 30 minutes I was hooked and barely able to play anything else for the next month.
I bounced off of it my first couple rounds too, but then I figured it out enough to start trying builds, and it got a lot more fun
Took me like 60 seconds to get it. I play poker and rogue likes already though
A poker roguelike...I don't get it. But whatever.
I didn't either until I played it. It's kind of hard to describe, but man that dopamine rush when the numbers get big
I am afraid to try this title... I don't really need a backlog distraction right now... 😅
Push those feelings aside and try it for a while.