8 ms·

Solitaire

463 points by goles 2y ago

modeless 2y ago
Balatro is the only game where my score has maxed out the value of a double precision floating point number. And this isn't some crazy speedrunning strategy, it's very achievable for normal players. It's strangely compelling to make numbers go up and Balatro harnesses that better than any game I've played.
- xnx 2y ago
  > It's strangely compelling to make numbers go up and Balatro harnesses that better than any game I've played. More than Universal Paperclips?
  - Arainach 2y ago
    Unlike Universal Paperclips, I actually have a desire to play Balatro more than once. It also requires more thought and strategy at every point rather than "wait for line to go up and click buy on anything available" The biggest difference is that you can lose Balatro, and you can lose it very quickly either due to bad luck or bad strategy. In Universal Paperclips nothing matters, once you get the most basic automation both the game and you are proceeding towards the heat death of the universe and all you can do is accelerate it. It's also a time boxed game - if you ignore the Civilization "one more turn" effect, any given game will be over within 20 minutes.
    - jerf 2y ago
      The "time boxing" is coming to be one of my favorite aspects of the roguelite genre. It's a nice structure for a combination of a deep and compelling game, that opens up at a reasonable speed, but also doesn't call for 80 hours to "finish" it. I like JRPGs but even so they quite often overstay their welcome. Death may wipe nearly all your progress but you can easily try again in another timebox. (I played some of the classic Roguelikes, and spent a lot of time with Angband, but that was one of their problems... winning still took many hours, could easily be dozens, and so death became very scary. They were on to something, but the modern rebalancing of "hand it all out more quickly, and resolve the game in an hour or two and let them come back" seems a much more practical approach in a lot of ways.)
      - RickHull 2y ago
        I never played Angband but got into the closely related Sil. Totally agree on your characterization (and a fan of your HN posts for well over a decade).
  - bdavbdav 2y ago
    Makes me think of this neal fun game: https://neal.fun/stimulation-clicker/ https://neal.fun/stimulation-clicker/
- jsheard 2y ago
  If you want the numbers to go even more up, the Talisman mod reworks everything to use BigInts for practically unlimited number go up potential. It's mainly intended to be paired with other mods like Cryptid which add obscenely overpowered cards, but Talisman can be used on its own if you just want to attempt the normally unwinnable ante 39 and beyond in vanilla.
  - modeless 2y ago
    Wow you can do that in a mod? Crazy. I wondered if localthunk would do this or if it was actually kind of nice for the game to have a "kill screen" ending like the old arcade games.
    - jsheard 2y ago
      The game is entirely written in Lua (on top of Love2D) so it's pretty malleable.
    - enneff 2y ago
      There’s a very active modding scene: https://github.com/jie65535/awesome-balatro https://github.com/jie65535/awesome-balatro
superultra 2y ago
I love this post a lot. Our entire world is perpetuated by platforms that are desperately begging us for engagement. It feels to me at least that I'm being pulled in a hundred directions, for all my time for all time. My engagement with Balatro is not quite the same as localthunks. I go in phases where I play a lot and then put it down and walk away, and then weeks later I get back into it. But that also feels like it's in the spirit of what localthunk is talking about here. It's a comfort game. A pasttime rather than an addiction. Balatro is a stress reliever for me and I can jump in, play, and jump out and it's fine. I wonder what our digital world would look like if more tools and platforms adopted an approach that was not clinging desperately for everything all the time all at once.
- cwizou 2y ago
  > It's a comfort game. A pasttime rather than an addiction. Balatro is a stress reliever for me and I can jump in, play, and jump out and it's fine. Exactly. To me there are two specific things that gives it that stress reliever, jump in/out spirit of Solitaire : - You know from the start you may not win every round. - Things can instantly and dramatically turn one way or another. I think both are perfectly captured in Balatro, and it manages to achieve it with a vastly more complex design. And it manages to add more depth while keeping that formula with a large number of jokers that, depending on what you get at the start, will dictate a different type of playstyle. Sure, you can develop some strategies over time (money), but you (usually) can't force the direction of a run (at least early on), you have to work with what you're given. It's truly a brillant design.
  - ChainnChompp 2y ago
    > - You know from the start you may not win every round. > - Things can instantly and dramatically turn one way or another. Nailed it. A good rogue-like deck-builder should always have these qualities. My favorite for a few years now - Slay the Spire - lives by this.
  - bigstrat2003 2y ago
    I think Balatro is way too hard to be a good stress reliever. Unlike solitaire, I can barely win a run in Balatro and there's no indication as to what I could do better. I actually find it stressful more than stress relieving, if anything.
par 2y ago
Reading this makes me sad actually, because I grew up on windows machines (starting with windows 3.1) and have so many memories of Solitaire that came shipped with windows. The deck variations, the little and big effects (like winning!) I played it so much as a grade schooler. Now that mac is so ubiquitous, most kids wont ever know the simple pleasure of playing solitaire.
- santoshalper 2y ago
  Don't worry, Windows is still far, far more ubiquitous. The bigger reason people don't play solitaire as much as they used to is that it is no longer the only game installed on their PC. So many people in the 90s learned solitaire playing it on a work from a lack of other options on their work PC. Now with the so many games on the web and your smartphone, you might not even try it. People give Microsoft a lot of shit, but including bundled games on what was at the time primarily a business OS was bold, controversial, and brilliant.
  - noirscape 2y ago
    Windows Solitaire mostly died because Microsoft strangled it with microtransactions and ads during the Windows 8 days. What went from a simple minigame you could fire up at any time got transformed into this monstrosity that kept forcing ads on you, urging you to buy premium versions, adding "engagement" nonsense (daily missions) and selling you back the same features that came free in the Windows 7 version.
  - cwizou 2y ago
    > including bundled games on what was at the time primarily a business OS was bold, controversial, and brilliant. Brillant, sure, but not completely sure it was controversial or bold, they have stated that it was primarily included in Windows 3.0 to help people get used to the new paradigms (for Windows) of the mouse and drag and drop, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Solitaire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Solitaire > People give Microsoft a lot of shit Well they didn't help themselves by shoving ads and subscriptions in all of those games : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Solitaire_Collection#Advertisement_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Solitaire_Collection...
wiredfool 2y ago
Don't fade in text on scroll. Just let the page scroll.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
exitb 2y ago
It really does work that way. It’s a perfect game if you have ~25 minutes to kill. It’s fairly complex, but doesn’t really require player to keep much information between runs. I hate going back to a game after a few weeks only to discover that I no longer remember how to play it.
- kenny11 2y ago
  I thought I was the only one with this problem. I can still remember how to play the original Doom after all these years (and where all the secrets are!) but the modern editions have so many controls and weapon modes that if I don't play it for a month I don't remember how anything works.
- IsTom 2y ago
  > 25 minutes Personally I've had ~1 hour runs often. Am I just a slow player or am I missing something? For context I've been playing for less than two weeks and haven't yet beat ante 11 (7M feels like a big step in difficulty).
  - Trasmatta 2y ago
    Nah, it's pretty common for runs to take that long, especially if you're going into Endless. Some of the top Balatro streamers I watch will frequently have runs that take that long (or longer). It does help to increase the game speed. I've got mine up to max speed (but I played it at normal speed for quite awhile, while I got used to the mechanics).
  - jerf 2y ago
    As you go up the antes, the number of viable strategies decreases, until it narrows down to just one or two a number of antes quite a ways before the "end". IIRC localthunk has said that he considers the normal "beat Ante 8" of Balatro to be the "real" Balatro and that the "beat all the higher antes" is mostly there to satisfy people who want it but it is not what he is optimizing for. In contrast to a lot of Roguelikes where "beating the game" is more "an offramp for those who want to call it a day but technically just the beginning of the 'real' experience". Both of which are fine goals, IMHO, but I think it helps to know that Balatro's additional antes are not designed to be in the latter category.
santoshalper 2y ago
What a thoughtful post. I think there is a narrative that localthunk is a "shitty programmer" (which he might very well be), but that by extension, it also means that he just got lucky and bumblefucked his way into massive success - almost as though he didn't know any better. A post like this dispels that narrative - he clearly put a ton of thought into the design of that game and was incredibly intentional about where he wanted it to go.
- mikepurvis 2y ago
  In what quarters is that narrative? Surely one only has to play Balatro for an hour or two to understand the incredible game design effort that underpins it all, which is brought so vibrantly to life by the music, art, animations, and all the rest of it. I can't imagine someone appreciating all this and still managing to poo poo it over a few bugs or maybe some quibbles about it having been built in Lua.
  - dilDDoS 2y ago
    People that mention this are usually referring to this chunk of the source code: https://www.reddit.com/r/programminghorror/s/KmEWRILR1q https://www.reddit.com/r/programminghorror/s/KmEWRILR1q My assumption is that a lot of the people that look at small chunks of code and judge someone’s programming ability are people who have only worked in corporate environments and have never had to build a large project on their own, and don’t have any understanding of the effort it takes to make a game like Balatro by yourself. Maybe that’s an unfair judgment. But so is calling LocalThunk a “shitty programmer” over some questionable if-else logic.
    - IsTom 2y ago
      It's verbose and could be simplified, but also looks like something you write once and never look at again. If it works it makes no sense to spend any more time on it.
    - slongfield 2y ago
      People love to dunk on hacky looking gamedev code. Some of it is pretty ugly, e.g, VVVVVV's famous gigantic switch statement, but if it works and makes a fun game, that's the actually important part.
bbkane 2y ago
I love Solitaire - it's such a nice way to kill a few minutes while waiting for something else. Unfortunately, many solitaire phone apps are filled with ads, slow, or have clunky controls. A few years ago, however, I found https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.tobiasbielefeld.solitaire/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.tobiasbielefeld.solitaire... . Its free and open source, and quite fast with nice shortcuts to move the cards. I love this app and have played multiple Klondike/Spider Solitaire games a day using it. I wholeheartedly recommend it if you want a simple game of Solitaire in the same spirit as the post.
- diggan 2y ago
  Was looking for this on iPhone as well some weeks ago, and came across a Solitaire that is included in Apple Arcade that works really well, doesn't have any ads or other distractions, just plain Solitaire. And another bonus is that Balatro (which the submission author created) is included in Apple Arcade too, which was the original reason I got Arcade.
  - schnable 2y ago
    Apple Arcade is great for avoiding all the adware and in-app payment crap.
- foobarian 2y ago
  This is why I play it with actual physical cards. I learned it as kid so partly it's a comfort ritual, and partly the tactile interaction is very soothing.
  - matsemann 2y ago
    It also "forces" you to keep playing when it gets tough, as a complete shuffle plus new setup isn't just a simple click away. It's also nice to get off the screen for a while. I recently bought a smaller deck of cards, like half or three quarters of the size of a normal deck or so. Makes it easier to play without needing a huge table.
- sl3dge78 2y ago
Trasmatta 2y ago
> I think that’s one of the reasons why there isn’t a player character, health, or classic ‘enemies’ in the game as well. This was the thing I found most interesting when I started playing the game, because it's so different from almost all games these days (especially roguelikes). I initially found it off-putting (part of me wanted more context for what was happening), but the more I played the more it made sense. And his comparison to Solitaire really drives that home. But also, despite the lack of a character or enemies, the game has a huge amount of character, which I think was critical for its success.
havblue 2y ago
"To force players to get out of their comfort zone and explore the design of the game in a way they might not if this were a fully unguided gaming experience." It's great how rogue like/lite games such as slay the spire and Hades have riffed on that concept. Guess what, you won't have the same power ups this time. You're going to have to learn to play the same game in a different way. So in Balatro you're playing draw poker in an attempt to build different hands based on your strategy.
- AdmiralAsshat 2y ago
  I mean, that might be the intent on paper, but when I was going through a game like Dead Cells, I still had specific weapons or layouts that I was especially effective with--and in practice that just meant that if I didn't manage to get my favorite bat or nun-chuck weapons to drop, there was a good chance I wasn't going to be able to complete that run.
  - jerf 2y ago
    Non-twitch based roguelites make it somewhat easier to learn and deploy those alternate strategies in my experience because you can read a bit of a clue online, think about it, and then play through a round slowly and thoughtfully. In an action game, you know, you pick up the sickle weapon for the first time and you may have literally seconds of experience with it before you die. I spent some substantial time in Enter the Gungeon but have to admit I kind of bounced off of it for this reason... I don't have the raw time to compensate for the fact that the guns require certain muscle memory for each of them, and the bosses need certain muscle memory for each of them, and the combinations require certain muscle memory... I enjoyed my time and you might say I got close enough to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I just don't have the time to get there in a game where fractions of a second count.
    - yoz 2y ago
      Yep. Enter The Gungeon is my personal favourite among roguelites but it's punishingly hard to get the hang of, and the huge number of weapons makes it quite likely that you'll only get semi-decent guns for an entire run – even when you're playing as the Gunslinger, who activates all synergies automatically. The upside of putting in the time is that when you get good, it feels fantastic. If you haven't tried it, I'd recommend Dead Cells. Yes, it's twitchy action, but it's easier than Gungeon to get good at, and the parkour-like flow looks and feels wonderful from quite early on. TBH it's a better game than Gungeon in most respects.
ziddoap 2y ago
>It’s now been over a year since launch and I am still playing Balatro almost daily. I play a couple runs before I go to bed I think this is really important, especially for games. Play the game you make! There's a fair number of games that I've played where the developer clearly has not sat down and played through the game as a player would. No skips, no custom developer-only starts or features, no rushing through sections "because I know what happens", etc. To be fair, though, these are often below $5 games on Steam, so I'm sure a chunk of them are cash grabs rather than an honest attempt at making a successful game.
- ksynwa 2y ago
  Reminds me of Miyazaki from FromSoft who said he doesn't play his own games.
  - ekianjo 2y ago
    He would not be able to beat the first boss probably
    - monadINtop 2y ago
      He's beaten nameless king, pre-nerf radahn, melania etc.
  - Trasmatta 2y ago
    No, he said he doesn't play them AFTER they release. But he plays them constantly when they're in development. One of the difficulty rules at FromSoft is that each boss and area has to be beatable by Miyazaki (which he said is a good baseline, because he likes challenge but doesn't consider himself good at games).
    - ksynwa 2y ago
      I checked and you are right. Thanks for the correction.
    - Waterluvian 2y ago
lacoolj 2y ago
honestly without context for what this blog is for, or a link to the things it references (klondike/solitaire?) it's hard to want to read the full thing
schnable 2y ago
This inspired me to play a round of Klondike for the first time in many years. Pretty fun! Probably slightly healthier than scrolling social media.
throwaway019254 2y ago
This game is freaking addicting. I had to uninstall it.
- saulpw 2y ago
  It was for me too, but only for about a month or so. Once I got 19 of 20 achievements (and the last one is nigh-impossible), I lost interest, and haven't played it since. (Though this post is tempting me to try a game or two with a different non-addicted attitude!) This is in stark contrast with Slay the Spire, which I've been playing compulsively since 2019.
dilDDoS 2y ago
Great read, I always love reading about the thoughts and intentions behind game design. > I play a couple runs before I go to bed I do see the relaxing component of the game once you’ve got the hang of it and are playing on white stake. But I do feel like the game encourages you to take on more difficult/frustrating stakes and decks, so for someone working on gold stake for the black deck for example, it would absolutely not be something to play before bed (unless you’re in the mood to cry yourself to sleep)
aaroninsf 2y ago
It's always interesting to drop into these posts, especially when they are at the top of the HN list, and have zero context. Who is this person? What is localthunk? What is "Balatro"? A reminder there are subpopulations online within which <things> are well known and active references. And others, like mine, where <things> have not once come up. I think like podcasts, mobile games are a thing that is just totally invisible to me and <my circle>.
- skyyler 2y ago
  If you spent as long reading search results for "Balatro" as you did writing this comment, you would have enough context to understand what localthunk and balatro are. I find your musing on the topic interesting, if only as a reminder that people have largely forgotten to help themselves to the free information that surrounds us.
  - dr-smooth 2y ago
    I don't think that was his point. He wasn't asking specifically what Balatro was. He just marvels at the fact that there are so many niche interests out there that their very existence is unknown to him. Your statement about people having forgotten how to help themselves to information is borderline insulting. A little like sending somebody a "let me google that for you" link. Or maybe I've misunderstood what you meant.
    - skyyler 2y ago
      Maybe you have. Either way, I don't feel a conversation with you is going to be productive. Have a nice day! (Or don't, I'm not your boss)
- jjice 2y ago
  TLDR: Balatro is a roguelike card game where in you make poker hands to score points. You can enhance cards and get jokers that have more effects. It wont a ton of awards this past year (it's just about a year old) and was incredibly well received. Localthunk is the developer. I believe he did everything for the PC version himself (except maybe a single joker's art). He has a publisher that helped port to pretty much every other platform you can think of.
momojo 2y ago
> My fantasy was that I was playing this weird game many years later on a lazy Sunday afternoon; I play a couple of runs, enjoy my time for about an hour, then set it down and continue the rest of my day. I wanted it to feel evergreen, comforting, and enjoyable in a very low-stakes way. I will pay money for more games like this. I want more games like this. I could write an essay on this beautiful breath of fresh air. Balatro, like many beautiful pieces of software, is defined by what it is and isn't. No ads, no screwy Skinner box mechanics. Just wholesome gameplay.
flocciput 2y ago
When I was a kid, if I couldn't be on the computer for whatever reason I'd occupy myself with a pack of cards. I'd play solitaire (Klondike) over and over. I would vary the draw count and see how that affected the game. I'd sort the cards beforehand and see if that made it any easier or harder to win. I'd try to find the optimal order the cards would have to be in before dealing for the game to be won in the least number of steps. Ultimately I figured Solitaire was just a roundabout way of sorting a deck of cards and started messing with other sorting methods. I still, every time I see a pack of cards, feel that urge to just sort and sort and sort. It wasn't even "fun", I was just so desperate for mental stimulation. Anyways, love Balatro!
evmar 2y ago
Sorry in advance if it's too off-topic, but if you want to play the Windows 2000 Solitaire I have it kind of working in my web-based emulator here: https://evmar.github.io/retrowin32/run.html?exe=sol.exe&dir=archive%2fwin2k%2f&file=cards.dll https://evmar.github.io/retrowin32/run.html?exe=sol.exe&dir=...
7thaccount 2y ago
Interesting to see this here. I've commented a few times on HN about recently getting into card games (e.g. various solitaire games, gin rummy, presidents, spades, trash...etc) and domino games. It's a lot of fun, social (even solitaire as we teach each other new versions), and mentally engaging. There's no screen and it all just feels less wasteful in some weird way. Board game night would do the same thing, but there's something beautiful about how much variety you can get out of a single deck of cards or some double-six dominos. There's no setup or 50 page rulebook required either. Most card games I just watch a YouTube video and then just remember how to play for years.
- bombcar 2y ago
  What you're looking for is Bridge. THAT is a card game you can teach someone the basics of in an evening, and still be learning more 3 decades later.
  - 7thaccount 2y ago
    Lol. I tried. Went to several classes and somehow still never learned to play. I can't tell if all the structure and complexity is worth the extra headache compared to games like Spades or other bidding/trick games. I have heard that it's supposedly by far the best there is though, so perhaps I should try again. I do play Texas 42, which is kind of like bridge with dominos. It's wildly popular in Texas, but hasn't reached much further. There's a lot of strategy to the bidding, but I'm not sure how closely it ranks to Bridge.
    - bombcar 2y ago
      The best is often to have one player who knows some of the conventions, and the rest know nothing, and all learn to play together. Whist is basically no-bid bridge, which can be fun, too.
      - 7thaccount 2y ago
        Good recommendation thanks. With whist, I wonder if taking out the bidding takes away some of the fun. Spades still has the bidding, it just doesn't allow for the selection of the trump suit. Some of the conventions in Bridge seem weird too. Why not just say 8 club instead of 2 club. I get that there is a 6 trick minimum, but the convention doesn't seem necessary. There might be a good reason though.
Waterluvian 2y ago
In terms of the low stakes feel, I think calling it a “boss blind” is really the only thing that I could possibly point to critically. It’s amazing how that one word can change the entire vibe. It evokes a much more serious feel to it for me. Not sure what I’d call it, but I wonder if a different word would suddenly alter the whole vibe just a bit more towards that stated goal in the first paragraph.
themadturk 2y ago
I bought Belatro and Zachtronics solitaire a few weeks ago, more or less on impulse. The Zachtronics was disappointing primarily because the UI is too small on my iPhone, and I have old eyes. Belatro is great. I'm something of a Solitaire addict. In addition to Belatro, the Microsoft Solitaire Collection is the only game on my iPhone, and I happily pay Microsoft $10 a year because the design is the most comfortable for me. Klondike soothes me like nothing else, but it's nice to be able to put a little variety in the game for me with FreeCell, Pyramid or TriPeaks (I'm not a Spider fan).
- yapyap 2y ago
  lovely comment, it is spelled balatro by the way.
- twright 2y ago
  You should try out FlipFlop solitaire by Zach Gage if you haven't already, definitely a fun spin on the solitaire concept and the game plays very smoothly.
linwangg 2y ago
[dead]

463 points by goles 2y ago

Balatro is the only game where my score has maxed out the value of a double precision floating point number. And this isn't some crazy speedrunning strategy, it's very achievable for normal players. It's strangely compelling to make numbers go up and Balatro harnesses that better than any game I've played.

xnx 2y ago
> It's strangely compelling to make numbers go up and Balatro harnesses that better than any game I've played. More than Universal Paperclips?
- Arainach 2y ago
  Unlike Universal Paperclips, I actually have a desire to play Balatro more than once. It also requires more thought and strategy at every point rather than "wait for line to go up and click buy on anything available" The biggest difference is that you can lose Balatro, and you can lose it very quickly either due to bad luck or bad strategy. In Universal Paperclips nothing matters, once you get the most basic automation both the game and you are proceeding towards the heat death of the universe and all you can do is accelerate it. It's also a time boxed game - if you ignore the Civilization "one more turn" effect, any given game will be over within 20 minutes.
  - jerf 2y ago
    The "time boxing" is coming to be one of my favorite aspects of the roguelite genre. It's a nice structure for a combination of a deep and compelling game, that opens up at a reasonable speed, but also doesn't call for 80 hours to "finish" it. I like JRPGs but even so they quite often overstay their welcome. Death may wipe nearly all your progress but you can easily try again in another timebox. (I played some of the classic Roguelikes, and spent a lot of time with Angband, but that was one of their problems... winning still took many hours, could easily be dozens, and so death became very scary. They were on to something, but the modern rebalancing of "hand it all out more quickly, and resolve the game in an hour or two and let them come back" seems a much more practical approach in a lot of ways.)
    - RickHull 2y ago
      I never played Angband but got into the closely related Sil. Totally agree on your characterization (and a fan of your HN posts for well over a decade).
- bdavbdav 2y ago
  Makes me think of this neal fun game: https://neal.fun/stimulation-clicker/ https://neal.fun/stimulation-clicker/
jsheard 2y ago
If you want the numbers to go even more up, the Talisman mod reworks everything to use BigInts for practically unlimited number go up potential. It's mainly intended to be paired with other mods like Cryptid which add obscenely overpowered cards, but Talisman can be used on its own if you just want to attempt the normally unwinnable ante 39 and beyond in vanilla.
- modeless 2y ago
  Wow you can do that in a mod? Crazy. I wondered if localthunk would do this or if it was actually kind of nice for the game to have a "kill screen" ending like the old arcade games.
  - jsheard 2y ago
    The game is entirely written in Lua (on top of Love2D) so it's pretty malleable.
  - enneff 2y ago
    There’s a very active modding scene: https://github.com/jie65535/awesome-balatro https://github.com/jie65535/awesome-balatro

superultra 2y ago

I love this post a lot. Our entire world is perpetuated by platforms that are desperately begging us for engagement. It feels to me at least that I'm being pulled in a hundred directions, for all my time for all time. My engagement with Balatro is not quite the same as localthunks. I go in phases where I play a lot and then put it down and walk away, and then weeks later I get back into it. But that also feels like it's in the spirit of what localthunk is talking about here. It's a comfort game. A pasttime rather than an addiction. Balatro is a stress reliever for me and I can jump in, play, and jump out and it's fine. I wonder what our digital world would look like if more tools and platforms adopted an approach that was not clinging desperately for everything all the time all at once.

cwizou 2y ago
> It's a comfort game. A pasttime rather than an addiction. Balatro is a stress reliever for me and I can jump in, play, and jump out and it's fine. Exactly. To me there are two specific things that gives it that stress reliever, jump in/out spirit of Solitaire : - You know from the start you may not win every round. - Things can instantly and dramatically turn one way or another. I think both are perfectly captured in Balatro, and it manages to achieve it with a vastly more complex design. And it manages to add more depth while keeping that formula with a large number of jokers that, depending on what you get at the start, will dictate a different type of playstyle. Sure, you can develop some strategies over time (money), but you (usually) can't force the direction of a run (at least early on), you have to work with what you're given. It's truly a brillant design.
- ChainnChompp 2y ago
  > - You know from the start you may not win every round. > - Things can instantly and dramatically turn one way or another. Nailed it. A good rogue-like deck-builder should always have these qualities. My favorite for a few years now - Slay the Spire - lives by this.
- bigstrat2003 2y ago
  I think Balatro is way too hard to be a good stress reliever. Unlike solitaire, I can barely win a run in Balatro and there's no indication as to what I could do better. I actually find it stressful more than stress relieving, if anything.

par 2y ago

Reading this makes me sad actually, because I grew up on windows machines (starting with windows 3.1) and have so many memories of Solitaire that came shipped with windows. The deck variations, the little and big effects (like winning!) I played it so much as a grade schooler. Now that mac is so ubiquitous, most kids wont ever know the simple pleasure of playing solitaire.

santoshalper 2y ago
Don't worry, Windows is still far, far more ubiquitous. The bigger reason people don't play solitaire as much as they used to is that it is no longer the only game installed on their PC. So many people in the 90s learned solitaire playing it on a work from a lack of other options on their work PC. Now with the so many games on the web and your smartphone, you might not even try it. People give Microsoft a lot of shit, but including bundled games on what was at the time primarily a business OS was bold, controversial, and brilliant.
- noirscape 2y ago
  Windows Solitaire mostly died because Microsoft strangled it with microtransactions and ads during the Windows 8 days. What went from a simple minigame you could fire up at any time got transformed into this monstrosity that kept forcing ads on you, urging you to buy premium versions, adding "engagement" nonsense (daily missions) and selling you back the same features that came free in the Windows 7 version.
- cwizou 2y ago
  > including bundled games on what was at the time primarily a business OS was bold, controversial, and brilliant. Brillant, sure, but not completely sure it was controversial or bold, they have stated that it was primarily included in Windows 3.0 to help people get used to the new paradigms (for Windows) of the mouse and drag and drop, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Solitaire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Solitaire > People give Microsoft a lot of shit Well they didn't help themselves by shoving ads and subscriptions in all of those games : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Solitaire_Collection#Advertisement_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Solitaire_Collection...

wiredfool 2y ago

Don't fade in text on scroll. Just let the page scroll.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

exitb 2y ago

It really does work that way. It’s a perfect game if you have ~25 minutes to kill. It’s fairly complex, but doesn’t really require player to keep much information between runs. I hate going back to a game after a few weeks only to discover that I no longer remember how to play it.

kenny11 2y ago
I thought I was the only one with this problem. I can still remember how to play the original Doom after all these years (and where all the secrets are!) but the modern editions have so many controls and weapon modes that if I don't play it for a month I don't remember how anything works.
IsTom 2y ago
> 25 minutes Personally I've had ~1 hour runs often. Am I just a slow player or am I missing something? For context I've been playing for less than two weeks and haven't yet beat ante 11 (7M feels like a big step in difficulty).
- Trasmatta 2y ago
  Nah, it's pretty common for runs to take that long, especially if you're going into Endless. Some of the top Balatro streamers I watch will frequently have runs that take that long (or longer). It does help to increase the game speed. I've got mine up to max speed (but I played it at normal speed for quite awhile, while I got used to the mechanics).
- jerf 2y ago
  As you go up the antes, the number of viable strategies decreases, until it narrows down to just one or two a number of antes quite a ways before the "end". IIRC localthunk has said that he considers the normal "beat Ante 8" of Balatro to be the "real" Balatro and that the "beat all the higher antes" is mostly there to satisfy people who want it but it is not what he is optimizing for. In contrast to a lot of Roguelikes where "beating the game" is more "an offramp for those who want to call it a day but technically just the beginning of the 'real' experience". Both of which are fine goals, IMHO, but I think it helps to know that Balatro's additional antes are not designed to be in the latter category.

santoshalper 2y ago

What a thoughtful post. I think there is a narrative that localthunk is a "shitty programmer" (which he might very well be), but that by extension, it also means that he just got lucky and bumblefucked his way into massive success - almost as though he didn't know any better. A post like this dispels that narrative - he clearly put a ton of thought into the design of that game and was incredibly intentional about where he wanted it to go.

mikepurvis 2y ago
In what quarters is that narrative? Surely one only has to play Balatro for an hour or two to understand the incredible game design effort that underpins it all, which is brought so vibrantly to life by the music, art, animations, and all the rest of it. I can't imagine someone appreciating all this and still managing to poo poo it over a few bugs or maybe some quibbles about it having been built in Lua.
- dilDDoS 2y ago
  People that mention this are usually referring to this chunk of the source code: https://www.reddit.com/r/programminghorror/s/KmEWRILR1q https://www.reddit.com/r/programminghorror/s/KmEWRILR1q My assumption is that a lot of the people that look at small chunks of code and judge someone’s programming ability are people who have only worked in corporate environments and have never had to build a large project on their own, and don’t have any understanding of the effort it takes to make a game like Balatro by yourself. Maybe that’s an unfair judgment. But so is calling LocalThunk a “shitty programmer” over some questionable if-else logic.
  - IsTom 2y ago
    It's verbose and could be simplified, but also looks like something you write once and never look at again. If it works it makes no sense to spend any more time on it.
  - slongfield 2y ago
    People love to dunk on hacky looking gamedev code. Some of it is pretty ugly, e.g, VVVVVV's famous gigantic switch statement, but if it works and makes a fun game, that's the actually important part.

bbkane 2y ago

I love Solitaire - it's such a nice way to kill a few minutes while waiting for something else. Unfortunately, many solitaire phone apps are filled with ads, slow, or have clunky controls. A few years ago, however, I found https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.tobiasbielefeld.solitaire/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.tobiasbielefeld.solitaire... . Its free and open source, and quite fast with nice shortcuts to move the cards. I love this app and have played multiple Klondike/Spider Solitaire games a day using it. I wholeheartedly recommend it if you want a simple game of Solitaire in the same spirit as the post.

diggan 2y ago
Was looking for this on iPhone as well some weeks ago, and came across a Solitaire that is included in Apple Arcade that works really well, doesn't have any ads or other distractions, just plain Solitaire. And another bonus is that Balatro (which the submission author created) is included in Apple Arcade too, which was the original reason I got Arcade.
- schnable 2y ago
  Apple Arcade is great for avoiding all the adware and in-app payment crap.
foobarian 2y ago
This is why I play it with actual physical cards. I learned it as kid so partly it's a comfort ritual, and partly the tactile interaction is very soothing.
- matsemann 2y ago
  It also "forces" you to keep playing when it gets tough, as a complete shuffle plus new setup isn't just a simple click away. It's also nice to get off the screen for a while. I recently bought a smaller deck of cards, like half or three quarters of the size of a normal deck or so. Makes it easier to play without needing a huge table.
sl3dge78 2y ago

Trasmatta 2y ago

> I think that’s one of the reasons why there isn’t a player character, health, or classic ‘enemies’ in the game as well. This was the thing I found most interesting when I started playing the game, because it's so different from almost all games these days (especially roguelikes). I initially found it off-putting (part of me wanted more context for what was happening), but the more I played the more it made sense. And his comparison to Solitaire really drives that home. But also, despite the lack of a character or enemies, the game has a huge amount of character, which I think was critical for its success.

havblue 2y ago

"To force players to get out of their comfort zone and explore the design of the game in a way they might not if this were a fully unguided gaming experience." It's great how rogue like/lite games such as slay the spire and Hades have riffed on that concept. Guess what, you won't have the same power ups this time. You're going to have to learn to play the same game in a different way. So in Balatro you're playing draw poker in an attempt to build different hands based on your strategy.

AdmiralAsshat 2y ago
I mean, that might be the intent on paper, but when I was going through a game like Dead Cells, I still had specific weapons or layouts that I was especially effective with--and in practice that just meant that if I didn't manage to get my favorite bat or nun-chuck weapons to drop, there was a good chance I wasn't going to be able to complete that run.
- jerf 2y ago
  Non-twitch based roguelites make it somewhat easier to learn and deploy those alternate strategies in my experience because you can read a bit of a clue online, think about it, and then play through a round slowly and thoughtfully. In an action game, you know, you pick up the sickle weapon for the first time and you may have literally seconds of experience with it before you die. I spent some substantial time in Enter the Gungeon but have to admit I kind of bounced off of it for this reason... I don't have the raw time to compensate for the fact that the guns require certain muscle memory for each of them, and the bosses need certain muscle memory for each of them, and the combinations require certain muscle memory... I enjoyed my time and you might say I got close enough to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I just don't have the time to get there in a game where fractions of a second count.
  - yoz 2y ago
    Yep. Enter The Gungeon is my personal favourite among roguelites but it's punishingly hard to get the hang of, and the huge number of weapons makes it quite likely that you'll only get semi-decent guns for an entire run – even when you're playing as the Gunslinger, who activates all synergies automatically. The upside of putting in the time is that when you get good, it feels fantastic. If you haven't tried it, I'd recommend Dead Cells. Yes, it's twitchy action, but it's easier than Gungeon to get good at, and the parkour-like flow looks and feels wonderful from quite early on. TBH it's a better game than Gungeon in most respects.

ziddoap 2y ago

>It’s now been over a year since launch and I am still playing Balatro almost daily. I play a couple runs before I go to bed I think this is really important, especially for games. Play the game you make! There's a fair number of games that I've played where the developer clearly has not sat down and played through the game as a player would. No skips, no custom developer-only starts or features, no rushing through sections "because I know what happens", etc. To be fair, though, these are often below $5 games on Steam, so I'm sure a chunk of them are cash grabs rather than an honest attempt at making a successful game.

ksynwa 2y ago
Reminds me of Miyazaki from FromSoft who said he doesn't play his own games.
- ekianjo 2y ago
  He would not be able to beat the first boss probably
  - monadINtop 2y ago
    He's beaten nameless king, pre-nerf radahn, melania etc.
- Trasmatta 2y ago
  No, he said he doesn't play them AFTER they release. But he plays them constantly when they're in development. One of the difficulty rules at FromSoft is that each boss and area has to be beatable by Miyazaki (which he said is a good baseline, because he likes challenge but doesn't consider himself good at games).
  - ksynwa 2y ago
    I checked and you are right. Thanks for the correction.
  - Waterluvian 2y ago

lacoolj 2y ago

honestly without context for what this blog is for, or a link to the things it references (klondike/solitaire?) it's hard to want to read the full thing

schnable 2y ago

This inspired me to play a round of Klondike for the first time in many years. Pretty fun! Probably slightly healthier than scrolling social media.

throwaway019254 2y ago

This game is freaking addicting. I had to uninstall it.

saulpw 2y ago
It was for me too, but only for about a month or so. Once I got 19 of 20 achievements (and the last one is nigh-impossible), I lost interest, and haven't played it since. (Though this post is tempting me to try a game or two with a different non-addicted attitude!) This is in stark contrast with Slay the Spire, which I've been playing compulsively since 2019.

dilDDoS 2y ago

Great read, I always love reading about the thoughts and intentions behind game design. > I play a couple runs before I go to bed I do see the relaxing component of the game once you’ve got the hang of it and are playing on white stake. But I do feel like the game encourages you to take on more difficult/frustrating stakes and decks, so for someone working on gold stake for the black deck for example, it would absolutely not be something to play before bed (unless you’re in the mood to cry yourself to sleep)

aaroninsf 2y ago

It's always interesting to drop into these posts, especially when they are at the top of the HN list, and have zero context. Who is this person? What is localthunk? What is "Balatro"? A reminder there are subpopulations online within which <things> are well known and active references. And others, like mine, where <things> have not once come up. I think like podcasts, mobile games are a thing that is just totally invisible to me and <my circle>.

skyyler 2y ago
If you spent as long reading search results for "Balatro" as you did writing this comment, you would have enough context to understand what localthunk and balatro are. I find your musing on the topic interesting, if only as a reminder that people have largely forgotten to help themselves to the free information that surrounds us.
- dr-smooth 2y ago
  I don't think that was his point. He wasn't asking specifically what Balatro was. He just marvels at the fact that there are so many niche interests out there that their very existence is unknown to him. Your statement about people having forgotten how to help themselves to information is borderline insulting. A little like sending somebody a "let me google that for you" link. Or maybe I've misunderstood what you meant.
  - skyyler 2y ago
    Maybe you have. Either way, I don't feel a conversation with you is going to be productive. Have a nice day! (Or don't, I'm not your boss)
jjice 2y ago
TLDR: Balatro is a roguelike card game where in you make poker hands to score points. You can enhance cards and get jokers that have more effects. It wont a ton of awards this past year (it's just about a year old) and was incredibly well received. Localthunk is the developer. I believe he did everything for the PC version himself (except maybe a single joker's art). He has a publisher that helped port to pretty much every other platform you can think of.

momojo 2y ago

> My fantasy was that I was playing this weird game many years later on a lazy Sunday afternoon; I play a couple of runs, enjoy my time for about an hour, then set it down and continue the rest of my day. I wanted it to feel evergreen, comforting, and enjoyable in a very low-stakes way. I will pay money for more games like this. I want more games like this. I could write an essay on this beautiful breath of fresh air. Balatro, like many beautiful pieces of software, is defined by what it is and isn't. No ads, no screwy Skinner box mechanics. Just wholesome gameplay.

flocciput 2y ago

When I was a kid, if I couldn't be on the computer for whatever reason I'd occupy myself with a pack of cards. I'd play solitaire (Klondike) over and over. I would vary the draw count and see how that affected the game. I'd sort the cards beforehand and see if that made it any easier or harder to win. I'd try to find the optimal order the cards would have to be in before dealing for the game to be won in the least number of steps. Ultimately I figured Solitaire was just a roundabout way of sorting a deck of cards and started messing with other sorting methods. I still, every time I see a pack of cards, feel that urge to just sort and sort and sort. It wasn't even "fun", I was just so desperate for mental stimulation. Anyways, love Balatro!

evmar 2y ago

Sorry in advance if it's too off-topic, but if you want to play the Windows 2000 Solitaire I have it kind of working in my web-based emulator here: https://evmar.github.io/retrowin32/run.html?exe=sol.exe&dir=archive%2fwin2k%2f&file=cards.dll https://evmar.github.io/retrowin32/run.html?exe=sol.exe&dir=...

7thaccount 2y ago

Interesting to see this here. I've commented a few times on HN about recently getting into card games (e.g. various solitaire games, gin rummy, presidents, spades, trash...etc) and domino games. It's a lot of fun, social (even solitaire as we teach each other new versions), and mentally engaging. There's no screen and it all just feels less wasteful in some weird way. Board game night would do the same thing, but there's something beautiful about how much variety you can get out of a single deck of cards or some double-six dominos. There's no setup or 50 page rulebook required either. Most card games I just watch a YouTube video and then just remember how to play for years.

bombcar 2y ago
What you're looking for is Bridge. THAT is a card game you can teach someone the basics of in an evening, and still be learning more 3 decades later.
- 7thaccount 2y ago
  Lol. I tried. Went to several classes and somehow still never learned to play. I can't tell if all the structure and complexity is worth the extra headache compared to games like Spades or other bidding/trick games. I have heard that it's supposedly by far the best there is though, so perhaps I should try again. I do play Texas 42, which is kind of like bridge with dominos. It's wildly popular in Texas, but hasn't reached much further. There's a lot of strategy to the bidding, but I'm not sure how closely it ranks to Bridge.
  - bombcar 2y ago
    The best is often to have one player who knows some of the conventions, and the rest know nothing, and all learn to play together. Whist is basically no-bid bridge, which can be fun, too.
    - 7thaccount 2y ago
      Good recommendation thanks. With whist, I wonder if taking out the bidding takes away some of the fun. Spades still has the bidding, it just doesn't allow for the selection of the trump suit. Some of the conventions in Bridge seem weird too. Why not just say 8 club instead of 2 club. I get that there is a 6 trick minimum, but the convention doesn't seem necessary. There might be a good reason though.

Waterluvian 2y ago

In terms of the low stakes feel, I think calling it a “boss blind” is really the only thing that I could possibly point to critically. It’s amazing how that one word can change the entire vibe. It evokes a much more serious feel to it for me. Not sure what I’d call it, but I wonder if a different word would suddenly alter the whole vibe just a bit more towards that stated goal in the first paragraph.

themadturk 2y ago

I bought Belatro and Zachtronics solitaire a few weeks ago, more or less on impulse. The Zachtronics was disappointing primarily because the UI is too small on my iPhone, and I have old eyes. Belatro is great. I'm something of a Solitaire addict. In addition to Belatro, the Microsoft Solitaire Collection is the only game on my iPhone, and I happily pay Microsoft $10 a year because the design is the most comfortable for me. Klondike soothes me like nothing else, but it's nice to be able to put a little variety in the game for me with FreeCell, Pyramid or TriPeaks (I'm not a Spider fan).

yapyap 2y ago
lovely comment, it is spelled balatro by the way.
twright 2y ago
You should try out FlipFlop solitaire by Zach Gage if you haven't already, definitely a fun spin on the solitaire concept and the game plays very smoothly.

linwangg 2y ago

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