Balatro: poker roguelike for several hours

Not a bad idea, but lacks proper balance.

To begin with, obviously, you will have to familiarize yourself with the rules of poker, although these rules are well explained in the game. Additional Balatro rules are added on top of this. The idea is simple: you need to score a certain number of points per round. Combinations are ranked by power, as in regular poker – from a pair to a royal flush. The more powerful the combinations, the more points. well, almost. Modifiers are also applied to cards.

Score a point

The game consists of rounds. During the round we have to collect a poker combination several times. Each card gives a certain number of points. They are summed up, then a multiplier is applied, and the total value is added to the round points. The game has all sorts of modifiers for both points and multipliers. Essentially, the goal is to maximize the resulting multiplication.

Modifiers

Cards can be washed modified. And here the variety is huge. There are those that increase the multiplier. There are those that give a bonus card or gold if they remain in your hand until the end of the battle. They can be made of stone or glass, they can be improved so that they will be of any color. Between rounds, cards can be changed, including improved/transformed. You can literally build a deck from a bunch of aces of the same suit.

There are joker cards on top https://bettingsitesnogamstop.co.uk/review/spinscastle/ of the table, which add more effects. Some simply increase the multiplier, some give additional. multiplier on cards with faces (king, queen, jack), some give bonus points for each card in the deck.

The order of the jokers is important. Combine/rearrange to get maximum effect.

Between rounds you can purchase various items in the store: vouchers, packs, jokers. Vouchers give various effects: how many times you can play back per round, increase the gold cap, reduce the cost of items in the store, etc. d. Jokers provide various bonuses during the game. Packs allow you to get cards, modify the deck and bonuses from combinations. And it is very important to improve certain combinations, there is not enough money and time for everything.

I most often play through flush improvement. There is also a joker, which allows you to collect a flush from just 4 cards.

There is a nuance with improving combinations: the best poker combination does not always give more points. For example, a flush upgraded by 10 levels will give more points than a straight flush.

There are also consumable cards that can be used both directly in the store and during the game.

Well, then experiments, modifiers, etc. The wounds themselves take from several to tens of minutes. I usually play the first few rounds, if I don’t get a useful joker, then I play again. Allows you to quickly skip a not so successful wound, instead of giving up after 20 minutes.

The game would look fine on mobile phones, like a session for 1-2 trips to the subway, no more. I don’t understand why they compare it to Slay the Spire. If you like bozumie and repeating the same thing over and over again, then go ahead, enjoy the experiments. Personally, I was already bored with the game by the 3rd hour .

I tried to play more later to understand if there was any depth there. In the end, just grind for the sake of grinding. To open all difficulty levels for all decks and open all challenges, you need to spend dozens of hours on the same type of wounds.