Balatro review – this card game’s got me hooked

«Just one more teeny-tiny round of Mahjong», a colleague of mine used to say when he finished work at the radio station – only to stay at his desk for another several hours before heading home. Back then, Mahjong on Facebook was like drugs in app. The short games were all about getting the high score. And they always left you feeling like you could score even higher if you just had another go. Like a carrot on a stick dangling in front of your nose. Well, since yesterday, I’ve been all about «Just one more teeny-tiny round of Balatro» on my mind. A simple game paired with endless possibilities makes it more addictive than crack.

The concept’s dead simple: you have to choose poker hands from a selection of cards. The better your selection, the more points you get. The goal is to beat a predetermined score (called a blind in the game). The blind increases from round to round. To keep up, you have to invest the money you’ve earned in various bonuses between rounds. For example, I get more points for a flush or when you play certain cards you’ve upgraded. Jokers give you permanent bonuses such as a multiplier if you only have three instead of five cards scored.

Fibonacci patrols the highway

As a result, you soon stop playing the actual highest combinations, and start going for combinations containing as many bonuses as possible. In one game, I only played pairs, for example. In another game, I went for cards from the Fibonacci sequence – 1 (ace), 2, 3, 5 and 8. This soon turns the game, which starts off with choosing simple poker hands, into complex puzzles and a quest for finding the killer combination. Over time, I unlock more and more new jokers, which come with increasingly absurd bonuses. Take the walkie-talkie card. It’s based on the TV series Highway Patrol and rewards the cards 10 and 4. «10-4» was the radio message meaning «understood» in the series.

Do I often fail because I combine the wrong bonuses or am handed poor jokers? Absolutely. That’s what makes the game so addictive. It’s the feeling that I'll do better in the next round that keeps me coming back-

Throw some astrology and astronomy into the mix

The longer I play, the more jokers and decks I unlock, which give me new ways to win the game. If I happen to have a deck so good I exceed the required score of 10,000 points with my first hand, I feel like a Napoleon-style strategist. If I lose a few games in a row, I go for a different deck and a new strategy. This is how Balatro feeds into my brain’s reward centre in the same way as Vampire Survivors, Dead Cells or Facebook Mahjong.

References to astrology (tarot cards), astronomy (planet cards) and trading card games (booster packs) add a wonderfully absurd twist to the game, which suits it incredibly well and makes it even more compelling. The retro pixel graphics aren’t new, but they’re perfect for Balatro.

Will Balatro be the next card game to make my Game of the Year after Inscryption in 2021? Quite possibly.

And now, please excuse me, I have «just one more teeny-tiny round of Balatro» to play.

Balatro is available on all consoles and for PC. It costs around 15 francs.