Some of the most heartwarming and memorable game development stories come from the least expected places, and I’ve been following along with the story of LocalThunk, the sole developer of the critically acclaimed Balatro, for some time now.
A game developed as a hobby that turned into a Game of the Year nominee and has since sold 5 million copies.
LocalThunk never expected this kind of success for the card-battling rogue-like, formerly known as ‘Joker Poker’, and he’s documented as such in a new diaristic blogpost, which gives us a real rundown of the crazy timeline behind the game.
It’s a fantastic read, and the emotion of a humble guy who just loved creating a game and didn’t expect the critical acclaim thrown at him just bleeds through the page, so absolutely go read it. But here’s what I found most interesting from the post.
A short vacation in December 2021 started it all
LocalThunk shares that he saved up 3 weeks of vacation time from his day job in IT to just “work on some kind of project”, and what began as him working on mods for other games quickly turned into making a template for a brand new game.
His initial plan was to create an online multiplayer game based on two card games, Big 2 and Cheat. An idea that was later abandoned after watching streamer Northernlion play Luck be a Landlord on stream, a moment which gave Localthunk the idea to go a different direction.
At this stage, the idea was simply ‘CardGame’, and this is still the name in the game’s sourcecode. “I also made a very conscious effort not to play any more roguelike games,” says LocalThunk of this time, because he wanted to make something truly his own without being influenced by other designs either consciously or subconsciously “I wanted to make mistakes; I wanted to reinvent the wheel.”
He does later in the blog detail breaking this oath and firing up Slay the Spire in May 2023 as he was struggling with controller inputs around this time and wanted to see how they were implemented in another card game, “but I ended up getting sucked in. Thank goodness I avoided playing it until now because I surely would have just copied their incredible design .”
“All I knew about Steam is that there were about a million games on there and that very few could realistically make a living.”
Throughout 2022, LocalThunk began experimenting with prototypes, moving to the name ‘Joker Poker’. He worked on the game every waking hour he wasn’t at work in his IT job.
Early versions of Balatro featured rudimentary mechanics and placeholder assets, but they laid the foundation for what the game would eventually become with Jokers and Boss Blinds added to the game. This was a year of trial and error, with countless iterations aimed at refining gameplay.
Around May was the first time Localthunk seriously considered putting the game on Steam, as while he had developed games for 10 years they had simply been small project shown to friends.
Could ‘Joker Poker’ be the first one he released for public consumption? The main driver for this however wasn’t worldwide acclaim or riches, he simply wanted to apply as a game developer somewhere and figured having a Steam game in his profile would look promising on an application.
One significant breakthrough came in the form of praise from a friend, who praised the game and said he’d played the beta for dozens of hours. It was this really made ‘Joker Poker’ look like a feasable release for the public.
Joker Poker becomes Balatro and a full-time venture
Thanks to his partner getting a new job at a different location, LocalThunk quit his IT job to move with her and didn’t look for new work straight away, instead using savings to take 3-6 months off and go all in on Joker Poker.
“It was the perfect opportunity to work as a game dev full time (even if for free) and I didn’t know if I would ever have the chance again.”
The name Joker Poker happened to already be in use by another app, so LocalThunk sent a list of new title ideas to his friends.We know from previous posts by LocalThunk that this list contained the following names:
- Rogue Hold ’em
- Rogue Poker
- Trial of the Joker
- Trial of the Fool
- Foolish Poker
- Hands of the Fool
- Fools Gambit
- Balatro
- Balatron
- Balatronic Hold ’em
- Fools Hold ’em
- Hyperborean Hold ’em
- Cartomancer’s Hold ’em
Balatro, from Ancient Rome, means professional jester or buffoon. Nobody chose Balatro, but Localthunk chose it anyway. “Something about it really stuck with me so I just went with it.”
The process of creating store assets to add to Steam also took place during this year, and paying the “very scary $100 Steam fee” to upload the game. Money that I’m sure Localthunk feels was well spent now! At the time however “I didn’t think this game would sell any copies before this and my initial research into Steam reinforced that idea to me.”
The beta went live on Steam in May 2023, and…nothing. By the end of this month, Balatro had a paltry 48 wishlists.
Streamers discover Balatro, and publisher Playstack approaches with an offer
Later in 2023, streamers began to catch on to Balatro, the first of which was Dan Gheesling whose podcast I’ve linked above. This was one of the first interviews with LocalThunk I listened to, and his admiration for Dan playing his game is evident.
He confirms in his diary entry that wishlist numbers spiked for the first time when Gheesling played the game on stream. By the end of June 2023 the wishlists spiked to 2440. It’s not long after this that LocalThunk signs up with PlayStack for help with publishing.
NorthernLion picking up the game along with other word of mouth promotion and a feature at Steam’s Next Fest showcased the game to an even larger audience and momentum really started to build. By the end of September, Balatro was at nearly 50,000 wishlists on Steam.
Crunch time despite bad health, and time to actually play Balatro
The pressure of delivering a game to such a large and enthused audience took it’s toll on LocalThunk around the end of 2023.
While feedback from the beta was incredibly helpful it was miles away from his usual 1-man band approach to developing and he found the pressure overwhelming. By the beginning of 2024 he documents heart and sleep problems that he suspected a heart attack but was assured it was anxiety.
” I love working on the game but working on it so publicly and with such an intensity for so long is really catching up with me. ” he says.
Despite this, he went into crunch mode to implement important changes to the game ahead of the planned February launch, and the game does incredibly well at Next Fest, being one of the most played games of the festival, a week before launch he plays the game.
I found this part of the timeline amusing as I guess many developers don’t actually play through the game themselves much. “It’s actually fun. I have a pretty emotional moment where I feel like I did the thing I set out to do. Finally. I made the fun game I wanted to make.”
LocalThunk describes the surreal moment the first big review rolled in, a 91 from PC Gamer. He humbly writes ” I am shocked. That rating doesn’t make any sense.”
But this was no outlier, the game sat at 90 on MetaCritic and OpenCritic. “I don’t think I would have rated Balatro higher than an 8 and I made the damn thing.”
The first moment he checked the Steam page to see 50,000 sales and later $600,000 revenue was surreal “far more money than I’ve made in my entire life.”
He ended the day with burgers and champagne, and the rest as we say, is history.
It’s hard to remember a world without Balatro
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Since launch, Balatro was not only nominated for Game of the Year, but the ‘balatrification’ of gaming is apparent with Jimbo, the heckling Jester, making appearances in both Cyberpunk 2077 and Little City, Big Kitty.
Balatro itself has grown significantly, with four Friends of Jimbo updates introducing cards inspired by iconic games like The Witcher 3, Vampire Survivors, The Binding of Isaac, Slay the Spire, Bugsnax, and even Dead by Daylight. The list is huge.
You can even get Balatro merchandise now, from cursed-looking Jimbo face pillows to physical card decks.
While popular at launch, it’s place on the Game of the Year stage really propelled it further into the mainstream. Many initially dismissed it as the “token indie” pick of the year until they tried it and became hooked of course.
If you haven’t caught the Balatro bug yet, I suggest you try it and join the legion of Jimbo fans. As for LocalThunk, you can read more from his perspective over on his blog, where he also shares how playing Solitaire impacted his game design.
If you’ve yet to try out the phenomenon that is Balatro, it’s now available on Xbox Game Pass or you can grab it for $9.69 at CDKeys.