The RPS Advent Calendar 2024, December 12th

Open today's door - then run

Today’s advent calendar game is already inside your head, for this is not a game you stop playing, merely one you step away from between rounds. Even after you quit, it lingers on the edge of your awareness like a muffled bassline. It glitters in the air around you like a cloud of spores. It cannot be denied. It can only be…

...Balatro!

Edwin: As with a lot of games I like, the genius of Balatro is that it’s secretly a horror game. The horror starts with the music – that endless 7/4 time signature loop of synth and drum, wafting over a swirled, synthwave backdrop. It’s at once lazy and inexorable, the kind of lounging, layered composition that gently puts one part of your brain into cryostasis while turning another part of your brain into a factory. Such terrible music. I listen to it constantly while working, walking, jogging, eating, sleeping and playing video games that aren’t Balatro.

Like a form of hypnotic preconditioning, the music readies you for a roguelite deckbuilding experience that is both maddeningly basic – it’s a series of math puzzles in which you try to beat a score - and also, an alchemist’s workshop of combinatory possibilities. The star elements are, of course, the unlockable Jokers, which apply all manner of eldritch buff or modifier over the course of a run – my favourites include Popcorn, which gives you a decreasing multiplier as you empty out the bucket, and Half Joker, which activates a multiplier when you play a hand of fewer than three cards. To the chimerical Joker combos, add deck and run modifiers bestowed by tarot cards, spectral cards, constellation cards and a selection of card materials, stickers and seals.

If the options are extravagant, they’d be nothing without the presentation. Balatro has nailed down a very specific balance of papery and pixelly that inspires nostalgia for both Magic: The Gathering and Windows 95. The Number Go Up element is hideously amplified by the joy of tearing open foil packets and the transgressive enchantments of defacing or ripping cards, as you slowly craft a deck capable of scoring 100,000+ points a hand. It makes the mouth water. Balatro! How I fear you. But there is always time for one more go.

Brendy: Fear is definitely the right word. I played the demo of Balatro to pieces when it first appeared, and from the moment I started flipping cards I knew how dangerous it would be to my time. After the full game was released, I played it enough to complete a handful of runs (flush tactics 4 life) and then I put it away. It's too good. I can't have it anywhere near me.

Graham: Balatro's unheimlich mashup of poker, tarot and grander deckbuilding games brings to mind both Calvinball and Numberwang. The overwhelming thought when I played it was, first: what a lot of bullshit you've just made up, Balatro! And then, second: what a lot of alluring, brain-fizzing bullshit. Balatro meant to trap me. I uninstalled it after an hour.

Head back to the advent calendar to open another door!