No game has captured the imagination of the Engadget team this year quite like Balatro done, and when it was time for each employee to present their favorite games of 2024everyone – and I mean everyone – wanted to write about Balatro. In the end, instead of making everyone fight for the opportunity to write about their love for the game, we decided to ask the team to write their own individual take on the game. Balatro.
My Steam Deck is a Balatro machine and I love it.
My Steam deck This Balatro car at the moment, and no, I'm not complaining about it. I've already split my Steam Deck into multiple games. Balatro and I plan to play it more in the future, but for now, and probably until I take my last breath, its main function is generating wilds.
First of all, Balatro It's just nice to work on a portable device. This is the type of game you can play passively while watching TV or listening to a podcast, or with intense attention trying to collect wilds, bets, achievements and stickers on your way to Completionist++. The Steam Deck is the ideal platform for this type of game because, especially when combined with a user-friendly PC setup, it allows players to move between the two states without losing progress. The mobile version of Balatro is great, and the Switch version is great, but I started playing on PC and, after over 500 hours, I don't feel like starting over on any other platform.
I really enjoy curling up on the sofa with BalatroI play it on the computer at my desk, use it as a distraction during long commutes, and do a few hands on exercises before bed. Balatro The machine—I mean the Steam Deck—smoothly powers my obsession.
— Jessica Conditt, senior reporter
Balatro – a card game you can feel
Balatro it's a game you mostly play in your head. There are a huge number of modifier cards, each with their own effects and consequences, and you work through their permutations like you would tinker with a chemistry set. It's a game of decisions, each of which depends on the decisions you made earlier. Some work, most blow up in your face.
This is what it does Balatro exciting, but I don't like it. What I love most is how tangible it is. How does a digital card game make any tangible impact at all? It's small So and shake each card when it is full. donk when the wild increases your multiplier, just like scores speed up and raise the pitch as buffs and repeat triggers accumulate. trrrp about shuffling the deck. There's a slight delay when opening the booster to build anticipation, and the way the pack disintegrates to emphasize the finality of your decision. The sound of coins colliding when you collect interest or buy something. The fire that burns and flares around your score as you pass the gate with one hand, a dopamine hit within a dopamine hit. How the air is sucked out of trance music when you inevitably fail.
You are not a character in Balatro. You are just you, looking at cards against a background of swirling colors. However, all these luxuries do a lot to suck you into the vortex, to really lock you in, somehow giving a game that's more like video poker the feel of a physical place. Balatro Above all, it is an example of the economical and thoughtful design of the A-1. The easiest way to dilute the sound is to turn the sound on silent.
— Jeff Dunn, senior reporter
The real Balatro were the joker stickers we earned along the way.
I'm not an achievement hunter – I'm the type of person who skips uninteresting side quests and rarely replays games after completing them. The only platinum game in my PlayStation collection is the PS4 version. Resogunand I have 100% exactly zero games on my Xbox. Why then was 2024 the year I became obsessed with achieving Completionist++ on Balatro?
I got the Completionist Steam achievement, which you get by discovering every card in the game, after a month of playing. It took me another five months to get Completionist+, which is awarded to those who beat Ante 8 with every deck on gold difficulty. The only thing left for me to do is the hardest challenge in the game: Rival++, which involves getting gold stickers on each wild card by beating Ante 8 on gold difficulty while each one is active.
At the time of writing, Completionist++ is still a distant dream. After beating Completionist+, it's easy to feel like you've mastered the game; There are simple joker combinations that will help you beat the Ante 8 in every deck. Completionist++ strips away these safety nets, forcing you to play through the game's hardest level without relying on reliable strategies. Although I sometimes miss my early days of chasing records with Balatrothis challenge has given the game a whole new dynamic for me as I figure out how to force a win out of wild cards that I previously thought were useless.
If you've passed all the bets and are wondering what to do next, Completionist++ is a challenge worth giving yourself. Just a warning: I played 460 hours on my PC and Steam Deck and only unlocked 961 of the 1,200 stickers in the game.
—Aaron Suppouris, executive editor
Balatro is a deep and complex game for dirty casuals like me.
Some of my friends and colleagues accept Balatro to some wild extremes. Aaron told me that he had unlocked and completed about 95 percent of the game; At the same time, I'm at a measly 19 percent. Another friend regularly shares short videos of his runs where he scores hundreds of millions of points in a single hand with wild cards that I can't figure out, while my best singles score is just over 3 million.
But what's good? This is not discouraging; This is a feature, not a bug. Balatro has somehow managed to become the kind of game you can spend hundreds of hours playing in an all-out pursuit of completion and mastery. Or you can do like I did and take it, play for 30 minutes or an hour a few times a week, and then come back to it again whenever you get an itch.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to get to the point where I hit a billion points in a single hand, but my gaming time is limited and I usually prefer to spend it on the PS5. But one of the greatest joys Balatro is that you can get hooked and play it for hours and then not come back to it for days or weeks and then just pick it up and keep progressing. You won't lose any skills or forget your goals. It's a casual pick-and-play game that also hides incredible depth, and games like this don't come along very often.
— Nathan Ingram, Deputy Editor
Balatro is an almost perfect mobile port
2024 will undoubtedly be the year Balatro. He came out of nowhere and filled our heads with dreams of flush fives and the legendary Jimbos. But I think what really stood out was that it launched on iOS and Android this fall. Not only did the mobile version cost $5 less than the desktop version on Steam (or console ports), but there are no intrusive ads or additional purchases anywhere in the game. This includes all crossover shirts (for example, with characters from The Witcher, Cyberpunk 2077 and much more) and big upcoming update should be released early next year.
Additionally, there is essentially no difference in functionality between the mobile and desktop/console versions. Of course, this has a lot to do with the fact that the game is relatively simple (at least from a graphical standpoint). But even then, you'd be surprised how easy it is to screw it up. The game loads almost instantly, and even when you score an ante while converting your score to scientific notation, the system doesn't freeze. Add to that a slick interface, cloud save support, multiple languages and profiles, and a high contrast option that's great for accessibility, and you've got an app that works well on almost any device.
In fact, I would say that foldable devices like the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 are the ideal devices for hunting pranksters. Their large screens are ideal for Balatro without the feeling of cramping that sometimes happens on older gadgets with smaller displays. Text is generally easy to read (though sometimes less so on tiny devices), and there's plenty of open space to move around without getting in your way. I have a few minor complaints, which you can read about in my longer article. Balatro beauty on mobile devicesbut overall I am confident that in the coming years I will get more than my money's worth.
— Sam Rutherford, senior reporter