‘Balatro’. This has undoubtedly been one of the most talked about video games of recent months. Developed by a single person using the pseudonym LocalThunk, this game has achieved huge success thanks to its fantastic concept: combining poker with roguelike mechanics and deck building. It’s complex, very cool and extremely addictive.

Now it’s time for mobile phones.

Context. ‘Balatro’ is a seemingly simple game but it is quite the opposite. In fact, the poker theme is an excuse to get closer to the player, as ‘Balatro’ is actually based on Big Two, a Chinese card game. The aim of ‘Balatro’ is to create the deck that will give us the most points by using classic poker combinations as multipliers. It seems simpler than it actually is, because it is nothing more than straining our brains, something we often do during games.

Rogue-like mechanics. The beauty of ‘Balatro’ is that you don’t know which cards will fall on you. All games are the same (eight series of three hands each), but also different because the cards we get (or don’t get), multipliers and Jokers vary. Moreover, the game invites you to break it and get combinations that will break the scoreboard, thus crushing the system itself. There are few things more addictive than seeing a number gradually increase thanks to our actions.

a success. This game, which may not have caught your attention at first, was a complete success. The game generated one million dollars in revenue in its first eight hours. It sold 250,000 copies in three days, half a million in the next ten days, a million in a month, and two million by the end of the first six months. Not bad for an indie game.

So far ‘Balatro’ has been available on consoles, PC and Nintendo Switch, but now it’s coming to a platform that will allow us to access this black hole for productivity from anywhere: mobile.

Image | balatro

iOS and Android. The price of the game is between 14 and 15 euros on PC and consoles, and 9.99 euros on mobile phones. Yes, it is a paid game. Those who have the game on another platform will have to repurchase the game on mobile if they want to access it, and there is currently no cross-play and/or save ability. And if anyone is wondering how it’s going, the game was released yesterday and is the most popular paid game on the App Store today. It surpassed ‘Minecraft’, ‘Pou’ and ‘Geometry Dash’, which is no small feat.

‘Balatro’ is available for download on iOS and Android. Also available on Apple Arcade. It’s better to let your friends and family know that you may be missing for a while.

Image | balatro

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