regemond Posted March 5 Share Posted March 5 Balatro. What can I say about Balatro that will do it any justice...? For the uninitiated, this presents as roguelike poker. You're dealt a hand of cards and use your card counting skills, or your natural-borne luck, to build a game-winning combination. Everything from high card draws to the fabled royal flush will score points, and it's your job to work through eight rounds of three games. I've managed to get half way through a game up to now - ante 5/8 - before crashing out horribly. Like I said, though, it presents as poker. Realistically, it takes poker to a whole new place, and this is thanks to the store between rounds. You can buy a range of bonuses to increase your chances of reaching the end. Tarot cards apply specific bonuses to individual cards from your deck (this could be anything from giving you an extra $3 if it's not used by the end of a round to a multiplier if it's played and scores). Planet cards provide bonuses to specific hands - I'm a fan of bumping up my two-pair bonus, as it's one of the most common hands I play, and it can become especially prolific for points the more you increase its level. You can get packs that add more cards to your deck, and then there are Joker cards (that's Poker with a J... Coincidence?) that give you overall bonuses. The key to the game right now seems to be the Joker Cards. A two pair hand with two 10s and two 5s can score around 50 points as a base. But add in a Joker card that adds 4 to your multiplier if you play clubs, as well as the joker that adds 30 chips if you play a 10, AND a +4 multiplier for the same numbers, and that two pair hand quickly shoots up to almost 10,000 points. Skipping some rounds is an option, and will present you with a bonus if you do so, but this comes at the cost of making more money to go into the store with. Is that card pack, which is usually $6 worth accepting, rather than playing the round and getting to $10 so you can buy a new bonus card or a couple of new Jokers? In each round of three games, there's also a 'boss' match. This will add further complications to the gameplay. Some of the ones I've encountered include all face cards being dealt face down, specific suits being debuffed (so those awesome bonuses are completely negated) and even ALL dealt cards being handed out face down. These are super tough at times, and if you hit a bad run, you're essentially screwed. I'm under no illusions that I'm not great at this game, but it has a fantastic 'one more go' quality that makes you hop in for another round. I honestly can't express how much I'm enjoying it right now. I'm determined to figure out a way to get through all 8 rounds. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pikman Posted March 5 Share Posted March 5 I'm pretty interested in this! Do you think you need to play Poker to have a good start with it? (I don't and it makes me wonder if I'll get lost) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shinymcshine Posted March 5 Share Posted March 5 FWIW I've read a couple of reviews which have started out saying the reviewer had no idea or interest in poker, but then went on to really enjoy Balatro. https://www.theguardian.com/games/2024/feb/27/balatro-mashup-solitaire-poker-has-taken-over-my-life-roguelike https://metro.co.uk/2024/03/04/balatro-review-joker-time-20391058/?ico=metro-posts_gaming_whats-trending-now 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regemond Posted March 6 Author Share Posted March 6 15 hours ago, Pikman said: Do you think you need to play Poker to have a good start with it? No - I'm terrible at poker. I don't do well holding hands and working towards a specific goal. Think of it more in the terms of manipulating the deck to work towards what you want it to do. Especially when it comes to the point where you start replacing some diamonds with (for example) more clubs, or working towards having 5 of a kind. It's maths, essentially. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyKurosaki Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 I don’t understand Poker at all. My brother would often try to teach me how to play it, but I never got the hang of it. I utterly hate maths, because of my dyspraxia. Not sure this will be my jam. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regemond Posted March 18 Author Share Posted March 18 Managed to get my first win on this today (finally). The more I play, the more it's definitely not maths. It's literally 'make numbers go bigger'. Today's winning combo involved a card that increased its multiplier every time I played a two pair hand, a card that gave +4 on the multiplier whenever I played an even number, one that added chips every time I played an odd number, and a couple that didn't do too much, but still added stuff on. By the end, the two pair card was giving me +58 multiplier on every single hand. I also added bonuses for two pair, flushes, and straights. At no point did I need to consider the maths side of things. All I had to think about was getting as many two pair combos as I could to make my overall numbers go up. And it worked. This is such a well-balanced game, and has drawn comparisons to Slay the Spire in a really positive way. I can't recommend it enough if you're looking for a chill out game. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DANGERMAN Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 I'm late to this but I've put about 20 hours in to Balatro in 3 days, it's the perfect Steam Deck game. Beat it focusing on two pairs, as I had a joker that increased it's multiplyer with each pair played. I kept cloning or picking face and ace cards, increasing the likelihood I'd have pairs to play with My favourite build, that I think I could have won with but it was 4 in the morning and I'm pretty sure I did something stupid. Had a thing where my first solo card played got cloned and added to my hand, then focused on levelling up my high card multiplyer. Then I'd just play aces, added perks and stuff to them, so a high card was getting me stupid points and I always had aces Great game, but I'm glad I got a completion on it before I ended up spending all night on it with work in the morning 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craymen Edge Posted April 2 Share Posted April 2 So Balatro has made it's way into my top 10 most played on Steam. I've got 9 wins on various decks, but only on the first 2 difficulty levels. I've yet to manage a win with the black deck (which makes you start with just 3 hands per round, it's just bloody hard. If I manage that then the only locked decks left are for winning on the various difficulty levels. I did a couple of the challenges which make you play with certain conditions such as starting with some jokers you can't change, or restrictions on your deck. Playing one of those really made me appreciate how good the ceremonial dagger joker is (destroys the Joker next to it at the start of a round, and adds double the sell price to it's multiplier). Some of those look pretty tricky though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DANGERMAN Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 I know it not the point, but I kind of wish you had a little more direction over your run. I've stumbled on to some really interesting builds, some of which I've won with, most of which I haven't, but a few I haven't even had chance to try. The joker has turned up, I can see how it could be used, but it's arrived too late or I can't afford it, whatever the reason it'd be great to be able to set them and experiment. There's enough random elements left in the game that this could be a mode I think My last win didn't start off feeling like it was going to be a successful run. I can't remember all the details but it essentially swung on 3 things. First, I was using the deck that's split between hearts and spades, second I got a card that left me make straights and flushes with only 4 cards. Then 3rd, I got the joker that gives you an additional multiplier for every time a hand is used, so a flush was getting me something stupid like +60 multiplier by the end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regemond Posted April 9 Author Share Posted April 9 On 07/04/2024 at 19:45, DANGERMAN said: but a few I haven't even had chance to try I don't know if it also applies to the Jokers you're presented with, but you can do seeded runs (I think that's the name) and it saves your draws etc so you can play through that specific run again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DANGERMAN Posted April 9 Share Posted April 9 Do you have to copy the seed to do it, or does it auto store one? I fucked one up this morning that could have been amazing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regemond Posted April 9 Author Share Posted April 9 No idea to be honest, it's not something I've explored much. I know you specifically need to check the seed box ("checking the seed box" - that's a euphemism, right there) to get it to activate, but I have no clue if it saves somewhere or not. Might be worth screenshotting the seed number as you launch it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mfnick Posted April 14 Share Posted April 14 This is addictive as fuck. Cliche but went to have a quick go earlier after finishing Pepper Grinder and I ended jp playing it for hours. Don’t know how long itll keep my interest for - with these type of games I tend to obsess for the first ~10 hours then drop off completely. But so far so good. Reached boss of ante up level 8. That was a fucker. Went from 75,000 points to 300,000. Got to get a really lucky hand to make that jump! Wtf. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mfnick Posted April 15 Share Posted April 15 Cool. Blue deck, found a joker which increased multiplier for each Tarot card. Got him to x35 plus some other multi’s and general upgraded card. Fell lucky with the final boss blind this time. “Only” 100,000 points and his debuff was to shuffle and place jokers face down which had no effect at all. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mfnick Posted April 17 Share Posted April 17 Bastard cheating game. Almost got my 3rd win but was using a Face card build where all cards were counted as Face ones. Reached the final Boss Blind and the cheating git debuffed all face cards with no option to re-roll it. Argh! Couldn’t score a bloody thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craymen Edge Posted April 19 Share Posted April 19 A mod to change the card faces and back art to those from Solitaire in Windows 95 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3223727481 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DANGERMAN Posted April 19 Share Posted April 19 Does it do the ending too, that's all I'd care about Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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