By any measure, Balatro is a phenomenon. A bizarre little indie card recreation that got here out of nowhere in 2023, it earned rave evaluations when it launched in early 2024, claimed our Game of the Year crown, and has a number of the greatest builders and publishers on the planet lining as much as get in on the motion.
Today, a bit of over a yr after its launch, developer LocalThunk has shared the official “Balatro Timeline,” an in depth and surprisingly dramatic rundown of the way it all got here to be (together with, in case you have been curious, the origins of his title) that is additionally only a straight ton of enjoyable to learn.
The timeline begins in December 2021, when LocalThunk determined to burn three weeks of vacation time “to work on some form of venture.” CardGame, the “manufacturing working folder for all Balatro supply code,” was created on December 20, 2021, and has by no means been renamed.
A month later, “My trip is over, however I’m now totally immersed and obsessed,” LocalThunk wrote. “This is my favorite feeling on the planet. When I used to be again in college I would normally keep up till the wee hours of the morning engaged on my bizarre recreation initiatives and greet my dad and mom whereas they made their morning espresso. I bought again into this groove and beginning in January I used to be hooked.”
From there, the timeline follows the creation of Balatro, and LocalThunk’s life round it, by a collection of highs and lows: The seek for a writer, sluggish however rising curiosity within the recreation amongst YouTubers and streamers, the affect on LocalThunk’s bodily and psychological well being, the near-certainty that one thing would go catastrophically mistaken on the final second, and the shock when it did not: I’m admittedly biased, however his retelling of the response to Balatro evaluations is certainly one of my favourite segments.
“February nineteenth rolls round,” LocalThunk wrote. “The nineteenth is the assessment embargo day, and Playstack did a very distinctive job getting this recreation within the fingers of conventional media to put in writing their evaluations earlier than launch. I didn’t know what to anticipate, this was a fairly bizarre recreation in spite of everything. Average scores of 6 or 7?
“The first massive assessment is from PC Gamer: 91. Playstack and I are on a name after they break the information to me, and I can inform they’re fairly shocked. I’m shocked. That ranking doesn’t make any sense.”
The Balatro Timeline serves up some attention-grabbing insights into indie recreation growth, nevertheless it’s additionally simply an extremely entertaining learn. Even although we all know the result, there is a tangible sensation of rising pleasure and stress because the story progresses, and when LocalThunk writes that Balatro’s gross sales numbers on launch day “made no sense,” it comes throughout not as false modesty however real shock: “This was meant for just some of my pals and but in some way all these strangers selected to purchase it.”
“All these strangers,” certainly: Balatro surpassed 5 million copies offered in January.
