In any normal year, the title of Card Gamer’s favorite digital card game would be hotly contested and debated, and the decision would probably be quite an agonizing one behind the scenes. Of course, 2024 wasn’t a normal year, and despite plenty of new card games being launched over the last twelve months, there’s just one that absolutely dominated our gaming time above all others – to the point where it almost became a concerning obsession. That game is, of course, the multiple-award winning sensation, Balatro, which held strong in capturing our attention in gaming sessions, despite at least some competition in the last few months of 2024, from Pokémon TCG Pocket!
What is Balatro?
Though Balatro has been a massive critical and commercial success, it may still be the case that you’re not quite sure what it is, or what all the fuss is about. As always, Card Gamer is here to help!
A Poker-based roguelike game, Balatro sees players attempting to create the best Poker hands from cards they have available, with escalating points and multipliers on offer for the best hands. Each round you play has a point target, known (using Poker terminology) as a Blind, and each set of three Blinds (comprising Small Blind, Big Blind, and Boss Blind) is known as an ante. The Boss Blind hinders you in some way, providing an extra layer of challenge; perhaps it’ll make an entire suit of cards unusable, or only allow you to play one type of hand, for example. You’ll learn to dread these as you see them coming up, especially towards the end of your runs.
Complete eight antes and you win a run; if at any point you fail to meet a Blind’s point target, you lose. When you play again, you’ll start at the first ante with zero points and no Jokers.
The big twist, and the source of much of Balatro’s appeal, are the Jokers that can be used to make these hands go from being worth tens of points, to being worth thousands (and sometimes tens of thousands or more) of points each. There are 150 Jokers to find and collect in Balatro; though many are unlocked simply by playing, others require specific conditions to be met in order to become available. Generally, you can use up to five Jokers at a time, and it’s in the different special abilities and modifiers that Jokers bestow upon your cards, with you finding new ways to make those point values increase in a satisfyingly huge way, that Balatro’s addictiveness really shines through.
Of course, you can’t simply pick and choose which Jokers you take with you on a run; complete a Blind and you’ll earn cash to spend in the shop. A small selection of Jokers appear in the shop between Blinds, along with vouchers, Tarot cards (shown on offer in the image above), Planet cards, Spectral cards, and booster packs (each of which contains different types of cards), with everything you purchase adding further, compelling layers of bonuses and twists to your cards, as well as your deck’s overall ability to score ever higher points values.
Failing a run is always disappointing, but you convince yourself that you can do better next time; perhaps you’ll get a great combination of new Joker cards, or maybe you’ll be able to unlock a new deck, or find more Planet cards to increase the level of your individual hands. In any case, with even a successful, 8-ante run being a relatively quick experience, it’s all too easy to immediately hit that New Run button, even if you are successful.
Sitting down to have a quick attempt at Balatro almost always results in more time spent playing it than you planned for, leading to its game time racking up impressively, or perhaps scarily, quickly. Despite the game only having launched in February 2024, it’s become the all time most played game (by hours of play time) in my Steam library – which is quite the feat, considering that I have had a Steam account for 15 years! By that metric, it could be argued that Balatro is likely one of the best digital card games I’ve ever played, not just in 2024; it’s certainly been the one that’s captured my attention more than any other, card game or otherwise.
Who Created Balatro?
Somewhat impressively, Balatro is the work of a solo developer (known as LocalThunk, though they’ve otherwise remained pretty much anonymous), who wasn’t expecting his little game to take off in the way it did. It was an undeniable, instant success, however; launching initially on consoles and PC, it racked up a quarter of a million sales in just three days, reaching the million sales mark in less than a month.
Despite a high (by mobile standards), but entirely justifiable, price tag on Android and iOS, Balatro quickly shot to the top of the paid apps charts when releasing in late September on mobile platforms, racking up hundreds of thousands more sales in the process!
What’s Next for Balatro?
LocalThunk has been admirably restrained when it comes to adding content to Balatro; after all, as the saying goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Of course, Balatro is definitely not broken, so in terms of the DLC that’s been made available (for free, it must be added), there have been numerous cosmetic packs to change the appearance of face cards, with crossovers from other games making an appearance, such as The Witcher, Cyberpunk 2077, Among Us, and Dave the Diver (the latter of which has become another hugely successful game, developed by a small team).
You can even play a fairly fully featured version of Balatro within Dave the Diver itself; to find out how, check out our handy guide. We also have a tips and tricks guide for beginners to Balatro, and if you want to see our expanded thoughts on the game, you can take a look at our Balatro review!
It’s an exciting time for digital card games, with plenty more on the way for 2025. One that captured our attention, thanks to its appearance in playable form during Steam’s October Next Fest, is StarVaders, which even has an early recommendation from Balatro creator, LocalThunk.
Of course, we here at Card Gamer will be on hand to cover as many upcoming digital card games as we can over the course of 2025 and beyond. So watch this space!
