Balatro

Balatro takes ordinary poker as its foundation and builds on it an original roguelike deckbuilder that became one of the most successful indie titles of recent years in 2024. Instead of competing against other players, the player forms poker hands from a deck of cards, but multiplies and modifies the resulting score using so-called Jokers — special cards with their own effects that are collected, combined, and made to synergize with one another over the course of a run. The goal in each round is to beat an increasing target score before running out of hands, and to gradually build ever more bizarre and powerful combinations of effects that can turn a simple pair or straight into a combo worth billions of points.

Unlike classic card games, there is no opponent here and no negotiation — all the depth lies in how the player builds synergies between Jokers, Tarot and Planet cards, consumable items, and modifications to the deck itself, whether that means adding special suits, multipliers, or removing weak cards. Progress through the game is divided into so-called Antes, and within them a sequence of rounds called Blinds, where the last, hardest round in each Ante forces the player to keep searching for more efficient combinations. This purity of mechanics, combined with short, addictive rounds, makes Balatro a textbook example of so-called "one more run" design, where a single failed attempt immediately leads to another.

Visually the game relies on simple but striking retro pixel-art graphics complemented by minimalist yet infectious sound design and music that underscores the casino atmosphere with stylized cards and a game table. Balatro was essentially created by a single developer under the pseudonym LocalThunk, and its unexpected commercial and critical success, amplified further by its release on consoles and mobile devices, showed that even a seemingly exhausted genre like card deckbuilding still has plenty to offer if it comes with a sufficiently elegant and legible idea, such as linking poker hands with roguelike progression.

Why play it: The elegant combination of poker hands with roguelike progression and an infectious retro visual style make Balatro one of the most addictive card titles of recent times.