The Poker High-Score Roguelite
Welcome and thank you for visiting my Video Game blog. I play a lot of games across many different genres, and this is where I share my thoughts on those games and the industry at large. I hope you enjoy and come back for more!
Balatro hit my radar a little while ago, and I was finally able to dive in. Read on to see how it went.
When I started hearing about this new poker game that was taking off, I had a feeling it would be something I’d be in to. The first details were vague, I just knew that I would be playing poker and using special cards, “Jokers”, as power-ups of sorts to increase my odds of winning.
I thought I was going to be playing against other people, and the opponents would get harder as the game went on. Honestly, I didn’t really know what to expect. Once I knew I definitely wanted to play, I started avoiding information about it. I wanted to go in fresh and see how I could do without any outside influence.
I made no real plans to actually play, though, especially as a console gamer — I didn’t have access to it. Then, one day, Balatro popped up on GamePass. I downloaded it and dove in right away, and was immediately hooked.
It turns out, It’s not about playing against opponents, per-se, instead trying to reach a high score. Each poker hand gives you a score based on a “chip” value and a “mult” value. Once you play a hand, each card that scores* in the hand adds it’s value to the “chip” count. Your score for each hand played is the “chip” count times the “mult” value.
*Scoring: Only the cards that count toward that hand played actually count toward your score. You’re able to play up to 5 cards per hand (or discard 5 cards at a time); but say you play a Pair, but with three other cards that don’t make up anything or add to the hand, only the two cards that make up the pair are going to increase your “chip” count or grant any bonuses.
Gameplay
The game is played in “runs” where you have to get through 8 rounds or “antes”. Each ante consists of 3 blinds — a small blind, big blind, and boss blind — where the small and big blinds are simply to hit a target score (and can be skipped for an either an immediate reward, or a potentially better reward later), and the boss blind throws a twist at you to make scoring harder, like having a suit not being able to score, or fewer hands available to play.
As you play through the runs, you’ll gain opportunities to increase the “strength” of your cards — increasing the amount of chips that they’ll add to the “chip” count, or increasing the “mult” value, for example. And your scores can really explode when you start to add in the Jokers that are in the game.
After each blind played (like I said, you can skip some blinds), you’re taken to the shop; and the shop is primarily where you become stronger. There’s a variety of types of changes that can be made to your hand throughout your run, and the shop is largely where you make those changes.
There’s Planet cards, that will increase the base amount of chips and mult that each hand will give, there’s tarot cards that will allow you to, say, duplicate a card or get rid of cards, there’s of course the jokers, and there’s spectral cards that can take your hand to entirely new levels.
In the shop, there’s 2 random cards available to be purchased outright, or you can buy “packs” that can be a little cheaper but will give you a random assortment to choose from. Also, the prices can be lowered in the shop and the frequency of different types of cards can be increased.
Money is made during runs — there’s a base amount of money that you get for winning each round, and you also get an additional $1 for each hand left over after you win. You also earn interest of $1 for each $5 you have after a round, and if you’re still hurting for cash, you can sell your jokers or any stashed consumable cards you have.
The various cards sell for different values based on their effectiveness, and of course the amount of money you can make and the sell value of cards and more can all be increased throughout your run.
Your Secret Weapons — Jokers
There are over 150 jokers already in the game, with more coming soon. The jokers do all sorts of things, and can be combined together so you can reach crazy scores.
There’s a joker that will make all of your cards play as face cards, and another that will add to your mult value for each face-card. So every hand played automatically gets the mult bump. And, honestly, that’s a pretty modest combination in Balatro.
Some jokers will even multiply the mult value, and that’s how you can reach the truly insane scores. Insane scores that, honestly, I haven’t even hit yet. I’m still struggling to reach 8 figures.
There’s so many combinations that can be made, that I paired a couple of jokers together without even realizing it. In Balatro, you start out with 5 slots for your jokers. So, depending on the situation, it sometimes doesn’t make sense not to take a joker, even if it doesn’t immediately help you.
For example, a major way to get more jokers is to open the Buffoon Packs, and often, none of the Jokers provided really suit your play style for that run. And sometimes when that happens, one of the options is the card that increases it’s own value after each round. So you grab it thinking hey, at least I can sell it for a good amount later *and* free up a joker slot.
So I did that, putting the increase-it’s-own-value card on the back-burner in my mind, not really thinking about it. Shortly after, I got a joker that increased my mult value in rounds based on the sell value of my jokers.
When I initially got the second joker, like I said, I had just gotten the first, so it’s value was only about $3. Still, my Jokers’ total value was a decent enough amount, so I took the card. A few rounds later, I noticed that I was getting a lot higher numbers in my mult value from that card than I was expecting; and when I checked, I was reminded about the card that increased it’s own value each round. I didn’t put 2-and-2 together somehow, and still made a pretty strong combo. Or maybe I’m just dumb.
Sometimes, as games do, it feels like it’s deliberately against you, and that can be frustrating. One time that felt particularly egregious was when I had spent all of my money (literally down to $0) on a pretty powerful joker combo that multiplied my mults by, like, 6X each hand; and I came across a boss that cost me $1 for each hand played….
I found out later that I can go into debt, as long as I made enough after the win to make up for it, but it was frustrating at the time
Another one was when I had the aforementioned “all cards are face cards” joker and the boss challenge was that all face cards were debuffed. I mean, I know that given enough rounds and enough playtime that sort of thing is bound to happen, I don’t actually think that the game can tell what your strategy is and actively work against it; but it’s really hard not to feel that way sometimes 
Winning a Run
In order to win a run, you have to get through all 8 antes. You don’t have to play every round (or “blind”), but you do have to play every boss. You’ve got to combine your Jokers, hand-level increases, changes to your hands using Tarot cards, and more in order to maximize the number of points you can get from playing hands in the round. And if you do so well enough, and win a run, you’re rewarded with an endless mode where you can truly test your mettle.
And as you win runs, you’ll unlock entirely new decks that will keep you on your toes, and have you testing new strategies. You might get fewer hands to play each round, and fewer discards; or maybe you’ll start off with all cards of each color being the same suit (leading toward easier royal flush opportunities, and millions of points). And each deck has several difficulty levels as well, offering even more challenges to conquer and strategies to try.
Overall, there are nearly endless possibilities in Balatro, and I’ve been having a blast trying to put together the strongest combinations I can. I’m super excited to keep playing, so keep an eye on my YouTube channel where I’ll show off high scores and crazy plays, and comment below with your highest score so far (and any tips you may have).
Thanks for reading!