#this is because i am addicted to balatro

[soopmod]

Wings flutter. Beauty distracts.

[callmearcturus]

beginner tips for Balatro

ppl will not shut up about their weird poker game so wtf is going on

BASICALLY:

It's Roguelike Poker.

A LITTLE LESS BASICALLY:

You want to play hands to gain enough Chips to reach enough Chips to beat the level (called "Blind"). You can play things like Full House, Three of a Kind, Flush, etc.

The hook of the game is the Jokers. After every Blind, you can visit a shop to buy Jokers. These Jokers affect your hand in weird ways. You can carry 5 Jokers at a time. Mixing and matching these will unlock useful and sometimes hilarious combinations.

The ultimate goal is to reach the boss of the 8th Ante. An Ante is a Small Blind, Large Blind, and Boss Blind. The chip requirement will grow over time.

It's extremely addictive, has a lot of both vertical and horizontal progression curves, and despite how it looks and sounds, Balatro is a one-time purchase single-player game with no microtransactions or ads.

here's a fast list of things I wish I understood when I first started playing Balatro:

+chips < +mult < X-MULT is the way usefulness works. +chips will add chips to the left, blue side of the score calculation. +mult will add to the red, right hand side of the score calculation. X-MULT will take the final score and then multiply the WHOLE thing by it. So basically the formula is (+chips x +mult) x XMULT. The game does not explain this very well but it's vital.

You can always play 5 cards. Even if the scoring hand you are playing is less than 5 cards, you can use the rest as a free discard. For example, if I play Ace, Ace, 6, 3, 2, I will play a Pair of Aces, and the 6, 3, 2 will be discarded.

Money is king in this game because money gets you access to the Jokers. The easiest way to control the money game is to get to 25$ as soon as possible, then try to avoid going under that. 25$ will get you the maximum interest every round. When at the shop, feel free to spend down to 22-25$ish.

However if you need to bankrupt yourself because you see Card Sharp or Flashback or another extremely-high value joker, don't think, just do it.

If it says +1 hand in yellow, that means draw an extra card in your hand. If it says +1 hand in blue, you get a full extra hand to play in the round. Yes, it's confusing.

YOU CAN MOVE YOUR JOKERS AROUND. (This is a little Advanced but if you want to know the optimal Joker order, it's like the card usefulness: Jokers that add chips go to the left. Jokers that add XMULT go to the right. Effects Jokers, like Four Fingers (allows you to play Flushes and Straights with 4 cards instead of 5) can go anywhere.)

YOU CAN ALSO MOVE CARDS IN YOUR HAND. Playing a Straight as Jack-Ten-King-Queen-Ace is still a straight. If you have a Glass card, put it to the rightmost side of the hand.

DO NOT DO THE MATH. Or, until you get to very very high level play, do not check your math. There will be times when you have a single hand left on the boss blind of the 8th Ante and you will google the Balatro Score Calculator, we've all been there. But you need to believe in the heart of the cards and the vibes of the jokers.

You will unlock decks as you beat the 8th Ante boss with the last deck you unlocked. Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, and Black are the basic decks. After you have those, you have to use any deck to beat the stakes. Raising the stake will add weird conditions to the game to try to make reaching the 8th Ante harder. For example, I am currently on the Orange Stake on Abandoned and Plasma Decks. Red, Blue, and Yellow Decks are easiest for tackling the stakes. Black Deck is the fucking devil.

When you walked in the sand and saw the footprints behind you, that was Flashback as they carried you.

[eldritch-elrics]

the 5 best games i played in 2024

this is not a "top games of 2024" list, because, as always, i failed to play more than a handful of games that were released this year. instead, these are my favorites of the... 14 or so? games i beat for the first time this year. enjoy!

i tried to limit myself to putting one game per franchise on here. sorry, dark souls 3.

1. Dark Souls (2011)

a game about being one little undead warrior in a big mean world <3

dark souls! what a game! though i technically started playing this in december 2023, i think i'm allowed to count it among my 2024 games.

moreover, this is definitely going on the "favorite games of all time" list. i adore dark souls. it's rare that i start playing a game and instantly feel like we're speaking the same language. i love the weirdness and awkwardness of it, i love the grungy medieval fantasy atmosphere, the great characters, the difficult but satisfying combat, the incredibly memorable environments... the list goes on. there's a reason this is a classic. it's a very silly game and also a very clever game. i am incredibly glad that i decided to give it a try.

2. Silent Hill 2 (2001)

a game about a man who travels to a strange, empty town in search of his dead wife.

there was this one night in october in which i played through a frankly ridiculous chunk of this game in one sitting, and afterwards i felt completely insane in a way that i have very rarely experienced!!! what did they put in silent hill 2 to make it one of the most emotionally arresting game stories i've ever seen? i'm still trying to answer this one. add to that some top-notch atmosphere, excellent scares, and an environmental design philosophy that makes the world seem simultaneously more real and more surreal... and you get an incredibly tight, smart game where every part of it contributes to crafting the experience.

3. Inscryption (2021)

a game about playing a life-or-death game of cards in a spooky cabin with an old man who likes to cheat.

speaking of very clever video game stories!! inscryption is a fantastic addition to the metafictional games canon. of all of the games here, i think this one surprised me the most - it plays with your expectations so deftly, and all in service of a deliciously simple meta premise. helps that the core gameplay is extremely addictive, too. this was my balatro

4. The Beginner's Guide (2015)

a game about a guy showing you a few short games his friend made.

can i put a game on this list that i haven't played myself? though i watched courtesy play it, it's more or less a "walking simulator" sort of a game, so i got more or less the same experience. anyway, this is another metafictional game that subverts expectations in a major way that i am still thinking about nearly a year later. unfortunately, this is another one i shouldn't talk too much about - it's short, you should just play it yourself.

5. Lil Gator Game (2022)

a game about a lil gator trying to build the best playground game ever with their friends!

not only is this a very cute game about a cute gator exploring a big island, it is also a beautifully written game about games. not in the same way as inscryption or beginner's guide - it's about playground games! as someone who played a lot of those as a kid, this one struck a chord with me. it's also very creative, consistently laugh-out-loud funny, and all around charming.

honorable mentions:

Sable (2021) - what a cool world. what a cool way (and cool reason) to explore a world. this one majorly scratched my "exploring and collecting things" itch.

Dark Souls 3 (2016) - dark souls 3 is just really good, guys.

and if you want to see a list of all the games i played/experienced this year, here it is!

[flightyquinn]

Here's a question...

Is Balatro actually fun?

I know, I know. You're asking yourself, "Are they serious? Of course it's fun! Just look how many hours I have in it!" I can hear you right now through the bug I hid in your laundry pile (you should really wash those, by the way).

And look, I'm right there with you...

I've been playing this game every chance I get.

But at a certain point I have to question, am I enjoying it? Or, am I just feeding a gambling addiction?

Because the moment to moment gameplay...it's just poker. It's poker, stripped of the aspect of trying to outsmart your opponent. You see a target number, and you start calculating multipliers, chip values, and the probability of drawing certain cards on a discard.

Is that really engaging gameplay?

...because I'm pretty sure it's just doing mental maths.

Sure, there's the shops and stuff, but here's the thing - you don't always get to take advantage of them. That's at the mercy of the RNG, even if you math good. Plus the further into the game you go, the more the mechanics serve to reduce your control and make you more dependent on getting good RNG.

There's a nice flow of unlocks and new discoveries early on, which certainly helps to get you hooked. And as is the nature of these sorts of games it slows the deeper in you get, and the harder the tasks become. At least there's an option to just unlock everything if you don't care about getting the achievements, but I still can't help but think about how many forms of gambling will use simple rewards early on to get people into that mindset that the next payout is just around the corner.

All of which leads me back to my original question...

Is playing Balatro actually fun?

[otoutocomplex]

15 18 and 8 for the ask game

omg hiiiii dean :D

8. Game of the year?

well that depends on the criteria 🤔 so I will give two answers. if we are talking "favorite game that was released in 2024," then I absolutely have to give it to balatro. I fucking love balatro. I got ADDICTED to balatro. however, honorable mentions go to home safety hotline, hades 2 (which is still in early access but i am counting it), and of COURSE mouthwashing. if we are instead talking "game I played or enjoyed the most in 2024," I think it's gotta be graveyard keeper. or balatro again. OR seven kingdoms: the princess problem. I went absolutely fucking feral over that game and played it like six times back to back. it's so good

15. What’s a bad habit you picked up this year?

oh boy. that is a good question. I'm sure there is one but I can't think of it...maybe "cheating" on my daily tasks? lol. I have this app where you can track habits you want to form and give yourself reminders to do tasks and stuff and I tend to check them off even if I haven't done them just so I don't lose points. it's so dumb because then it's like. what's the point of even tracking 😭

18. A memorable meal this year?

bold of you to assume I can even remember what I had for dinner last night LOL. for real though...this is kinda lame but the only thing that really comes to mind is thanksgiving dinner. I kinda eat the same five meals over and over again so nothing else really stands out? oh well

thank you for the ask bestie 🥺🥺🥺 love youuuu

[paranoidandroidofficial]

Balatro is my GOTY (no, really, it is)

I don't really like to call myself a gamer. I play games, but I consider it to be a side thing compared to music... but I feel like Gaming is something that I have some knowledge of (as in, I've played a decent bit of games, and I know what makes a good game), so I feel like I can say that my GOTY for 2024... is Balatro. The indie poker roguelike that has ABSOLUTELY TAKEN OVER MY LIFE. (Ok, that's an exaggeration, but I am kinda addicted to this game)

The game is stupid simple. It's got the base mechanics of Poker (get poker hands, play poker hands, try to earn chips, and don't lose), but it adds a few things to make it a roguelike. Firstly... the Jokers. This is what makes Balatro so fun for me. The strategic potential of Jokers, the risks that some provide, and the massive reward that you get for mastering these jokers. Plus, the 150 jokers have fun designs! I love discovering new Jokers, and seeing their potential in runs. But of course... this isn't enough, so they added editions.

There are 5 editions. The first is basic bitch cards, which are basic and have no bonuses. Then there's foil, which just adds 50 chips. Not a huge game-changer, but still useful for early game blinds. Then there's holographic, which has 10 mult. Much more useful, but I wouldn't chase after these... now Polychrome, on the other hand. That has a 1.5x multiplier to your mult. So if your mult is at 50, it will multiply it to 75. This is HUGE, and if you get it on a great Joker, that can make your run damn near perfect... the same applies to Negative, which makes it so that the joker with negative doesn't take up a joker slot. That's HUGE, but I feel like there are certain Jokers and scenarios where Polychromes are better than Negatives, but... they're both undeniably the best editions to have, because 1 makes great cards even better, and the other lets you get as many great cards as possible, as long as you have a way to apply a negative to the desired cards.

I could go on and on about the Joker mechanic ALONE, but it's best to just go to Tarot cards. They're basically boosts. They can do various small things to help you out. For example, Judgement makes you a new joker, Death converts the left card... into the right card, and Fool lets you copy the last Tarot card or Planet Card you used. Tarot cards are pretty useful, and they're a nice addition.

Planet cards level up poker hands for you, so they give more chips and mult. It's useful, but nothing too exciting. I will give it this; they're always a good option to have.

And then... we get spectral cards. They're usually high risk, high reward cards, which is actually a very unique concept... but that leads to some of them either being way less risky, and obviously just a better pick, or just being straight up awful. Immolate gives you 20 bucks while deleting 5 random cards in your hand... it's good for thinning decks, but not very good otherwise. Meanwhile, Grim and Incantation only require a single random card to be destroyed, and in return, give you 2 enhanced Aces or 4 enchanced number cards respectively. The risk is basically NOTHING compared to the reward. The risk is almost always worth taking. The Spectral cards may not always be balanced, but it's still a fun and unique mechanic.

And finally... the game is endlessly replayable. Sure, you get the gist of the game very quickly, but the game has a rewarding gameplay loop, and it's practically something that you'll never get bored of. The roguelike mechanics give the game more depth than it would have otherwise, and for those who like Poker... this is basically Poker but if it were a game of strategy and luck rather than just luck. This game really makes you use your brain to form the best strategies, and get the best runs you can. And here's the funniest part... I have all this praise for the game, despite the fact that I have not beaten it. This game is so good that you can become absolutely obsessed with it, even if you've never beaten it. I've made it to Ante 8 before, but either a stupid mistake from earlier or a stupid mistake during the Ante makes me lose. I don't mind it, actually, because every run of Balatro is a learning experience. I learn what I should look out for, what strategies are and aren't viable, and if certain Jokers are actually worth using. Balatro has no plot, but tbh it's a game that benefits from that lack of plot. Balatro is just fun, and it's fun in a way that I don't see in most games. The fact that a single guy made this game is remarkable. LocalThunk, thank you for making my GOTY for 2024, and dare I say it... one of my favorite games of the decade so far... and yes, it's because it's so addictive. Balatro is so addictive, it's gonna keep me away from drugs and alcohol because I already have a crippling addiction, it's called Balatro!

10/10. I considered giving it a 9, but... 10 just feels right. It's such a simple concept with a simple gameplay loop, yet it's easily the most fun I've had with a game in a long, long time. Absolutely worth your 10 - 15 dollars, especially since it's made by a single guy.

[dr0wzytraz0done]

BALATRO IS FAR MORE ADDICTING THAN IT SEEMS BECAUSE I DONT EVEN LIKE POKER NOR AM I GOID AT BALATRO BUT I HAVE 10 HOURS OVER 2 DAYS SO