No game has captured the imagination of Engadget’s creators more this year. Balatro And when it came time for each staff member to announce their favorite 2024 game, everyone — and everyone — wanted to write about a 2024 game. Balatro. In the end, we decided to ask the team to write their own opinions rather than force everyone to fight for a chance to write about their love for the game. Balatro.
My Steam Deck is a Balatro machine and I really like it.
my steam deck Balatro No, I’m not complaining about this. I’ve used Steam Deck for many games before. Balatro I plan on playing it more in the future, but for now and potentially until my last breath, the main feature of the game is Joker creation.
First of all, Balatro It feels great on a portable device. It’s the kind of game you can play passively while watching TV or listening to a podcast, or you can play it focusedly, trying to collect jokers, stakes, achievements and stickers on your way to Completionist++. Steam Deck is the ideal platform for these types of games. This is because players can move between these two states without losing progress, especially when paired with a comfortable PC setup. The mobile version of Balatro is great and the Switch version is very good, but I started playing it on PC and after over 500 hours, I was reluctant to pick it up again on another platform.
I really like lying on the sofa. BalatroPlay it on your PC at your desk, use it as a distraction on your long commute, and catch a few things before bed. that Balatro Machine — er, Steam Deck — facilitates my obsession.
— Jessica Conditt, Senior Reporter
Balatro is a card game that you can feel.
Balatro is a game played primarily in your head. There are a ton of modifier cards, each with their own effects and consequences, and you work through their permutations like you’re fiddling with a chemistry kit. This is a game of decisions, and every decision depends on decisions made before. Some jobs just blow up in your face most of the time.
This is what makes Balatro Attractive, but not my favorite. What I like most is how real it is. This has absolutely no impact on how you create your digital solitaire game. it’s small tck Shake each card as you score. that donk When a joker is added to your multiplier, donkey As buffs and retriggers build up, your speed increases and your pitch increases. that growl Deck reorganization. How there is a brief delay when opening a booster pack to build anticipation, how the pack breaks down to emphasize the finality of the decision. It is the sound of coins colliding when earning interest or buying something. A fire blazing and rising around the score when you pass the goal with one hand, a dopamine hit within a dopamine hit. The way the air is sucked out of ecstatic music when it inevitably fails.
You are not a character. Balatro. It’s just you looking at cards set in swirling colors. But all these flourishes go a long way toward sucking you into that vortex and actually trapping you in it, giving a physical sense of place to a game that somehow resembles video poker the most. Balatro Best of all, it’s an A-1 example of economical sound design. The easiest way to dilute it is to play it on mute.
— Jeff Dunn, Senior Reporter
The real Balatro was the Joker sticker we got in the process
I’m not an achievement hunter. I’m the type of person who skips uninteresting side quests and rarely plays the game again after finishing it. The “platinum” game in my PlayStation collection is the PS4 version. RisogunAnd Xbox has 100% exactly 0 games. So why was 2024 the year I became obsessed with achieving Perfectionist++? Balatro?
Within a month of playing the game, I received the Perfectionist Steam achievement for discovering every card in the game. It took me another 5 months to get Completionist+, which is awarded to those who beat Ante 8 on any deck on Gold difficulty. The one thing that remained for me was the game’s hardest challenge. Competitive++ involved beating Ante 8 on Gold difficulty with each Joker active to receive a Gold sticker for every Joker.
As of this writing, Completionist++ is still a distant dream. Once you beat Completionist+, it’s easy to feel like you’ve mastered the game. There is a simple Joker combination that can get you past Ante 8 in any deck. Completionist++ removes this safety net, allowing you to get through the game’s most difficult levels without having to rely on a solid strategy. Although I sometimes miss the early days of chasing high scores BalatroThis challenge brought a whole new dynamic to the game as you figured out how to create victory from a Joker you previously thought was useless.
If you’ve made it through all the difficulties and are wondering what to do next, Completionist++ is a challenge worth setting for yourself. A word of warning: I played for 460 hours on PC and Steam Deck combined and only unlocked 961 of the game’s 1,200 stickers.
— Aaron Souppouris, Editor-in-Chief
Balatro is a deep and complex game for dirty casuals like me.
Several of my friends and co-workers are taking it. Balatro To the extreme. Aaron said he was unlocked and had completed about 95% of the game. Meanwhile, I stayed at just 19%. Another friend routinely shares quick videos of his runs while amassing hundreds of millions of points in a single hand with a joker that I can’t fathom, and my best single hand is just over 3 million.
The good thing though? This is not discouraging. It’s a feature, not a bug. Balatro has somehow become the kind of game you can devote hundreds of hours to completing and mastering. Or you could do like me and play for 30 minutes or an hour a few times a week and come back to it when you get the itch with plenty to do.
Don’t misunderstand. I’d like to accumulate a billion points in one hand, but my gaming time is limited, so I usually choose to spend them on PS5. But one of the greatest joys is Balatro The idea is that you can go on a bender, play for a few hours, and then just pick it up and move on without coming back for days or weeks. You won’t lose any skills or forget your goals. It’s a casual, easy-to-play game that hides surprising depth, and games like this don’t come along very often.
— Nathan Ingraham, Associate Editor
Balatro is a nearly perfect mobile port.
2024 is without a doubt Balatro. It came out of nowhere filling our heads with dreams of plush fives and the legendary Jimbos. But I think the real high point for this app was when it launched on iOS and Android earlier this fall. Not only is the mobile version $5 cheaper than the desktop version on Steam (or the console ports), but there are no intrusive ads or additional purchases anywhere in the game. This includes all crossover card backs, e.g. the witcher, cyberpunk 2077 etc.) And there is also a large-scale update scheduled for early next year.
Moreover, there are essentially no differences in functionality between the mobile and desktop/console versions. Of course, this is because the game is a relatively simple title (at least graphically). But still, you’ll be surprised how easy it is. The game boots up almost instantly, and the system doesn’t crash even if you break the ante while inputting your score deep into scientific notation. Add in a pleasing interface, cloud storage support, a variety of languages and profiles, and an accessible high-contrast option, and you have an app that works well on just about any device.
In fact, I’d argue that foldables like the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 are the perfect Joker-hunting devices. The large screen seems perfectly suited for the following purposes: Balatro It doesn’t feel cramped at all. This sometimes happens on older devices with less display space. The text is generally easy to read (though sometimes difficult to read on smaller devices) and there is a lot of open space to work without distraction. I have a few minor complaints. You can read more details in the following article. Balathros But overall, I’m confident I’ll get more than my money’s worth over the next few years.
—Sam Rutherford, senior reporter
