This message was to long for an e-mail form. I posted it here instead:
Had a fun time reading your blog.
The post about solitaire really spoke to me. I did love that game too. I loved sudoku. I love crossword puzzles. Minesweeper and the other Solitaire (marble game). IQ arrows is another enhoyable solo game. All games are easy going – but oh so hard to put down.
Balatro was first shown to me by a friend. I was instantly interested and got a copy. And the next 300+ hours are history! What a game… i don’t really play the types of games I did growing up (no more platformers, fps or any kind of action adventures or even any kinds of games featuring a speaking main character that i can’t control) mostly I play an old version of Football manager 2012. Dota 2 with two friends (but never on my own, I’m no good) and the only other games that really have stolen time from those two titles are Blue Prince and The witness – extraordinary unique special games that speak to me. Oh, I also play alot of chess.
And now Balatro 🙂
I have almost done everything. Completed all the challenges was my first bragging moment. Then it was alot of hard work and a whole LOT of hours to get gold token on all decks, but I got there. Eventually I also played to get all jokers and everything in the collection, check!
Fun story. I had this last joker that was so hard to get. I had to discard five jokers at once to get it. Obviously I played with the black deck where I could have an extra joker – giving me a chance to destroy five and keep one through the spectral card Ankh.
I tried this for a very long time before I finally had that amount of jokers. And I destroyed all but one – six at once to be exact (had one negative also). But nothing triggered that last joker. I remembered it said destroy five, not six. I spent more evenings trying to get that hand – and then hours later I finally destroyed exactly five jokers with the Ankh card.. ..still nothing.
I went into the collection to te read that missing Cards description. It said Jacks! Not Jokers! Discard five Jacks! I misread it. I got that Joker unlocked within hours and finally completed the collection.
I read that there was an update brewing, so I found your dev blog and read it. I really think you should charge us a little for the new material, this is an amazing game – no one makes games for me 🙂 I would easily pay for it again if you release it as a special extended edition or something. You deserve it.
Why not also mention a bug, now that I’ve written this really looooooong message. On the PS5, if you get to many Cards on hand and use the button to see the full deck, the game crashes. Every time. If you don’t look at full deck there is no problem having many Cards. Not sure what the limit is, 70 Cards maybe? I do applaud the very solid ”in case of crash” autosaves – you continue from the very same hand once the game restarts. So no biggie.
I would also have loved to find the animation speed setting alot sooner. I have a couple of friends who also played Balatro quite a bit, and neither of them knew about that option.
Thank you for a great game. You mentioned in a blog that you were surprised the game got such high reviews. I can agree. It certainly does not NEED to be scored higher than 8/10 – but it is at that level – and so polished. Being the player you clearly made the game for I find it addictive. Where many might, like me, be annoyed at losing you can from there either just give it up and leave with a feeling like ”Oh well, it’s so random. It’s not up to me” or.. ..grumble for 15 seconds and then hit play again. Until it’s suddenly way after midnight.
Again, thanks for a great game.
Kind regards,
Johan Beijer from Sweden
johan@beijer.it
