Balatro’s Art and Gameplay: The 60MB Indie Dethroning 150GB AAA Titles

Balatro arrived in May 2023, as a public beta on Steam, weighing less than a single cutscene in most triple-A titles (about 60MB on PC). The official launch happened in February of 2024. Cut some months off, it was nominated for Game of the Year. I thought: “Well, this says a lot about the videogame industry and the corpos that fuel it.” – and man, was it so much more than this.

Created by one anonymous Canadian developer (pseudonym LocalThunk🔗) with a stellar 20-minute banger soundtrack by LouisF🔗 (yes, they met on fiverr!), remixed and interpreted by countless artists, it’s proof that a focused idea can outshine bloated productions.

An incredible cover by InstrumentManiac🔗.

I only discovered it a year later, mid-2025, while looking for a lightweight, Apple Silicon-native travel game on Steam. Grabbed it on a discount, expecting a quick diversion. Boy was I wrong. Instead, it reshaped my entire summer (and still does at the time of writing this).

Get Balatro on Steam🔗

Clicking play, you’ll be pleased to find that next to “New Run”, you’ll find “Continue” – so runs are automatically saved after each win.

There are also some Challenges which introduce wacky modifiers to your game.
Because each game’s drops are seed-based (procedural precomputation), “Seeded run” is also an option, generating a fixed game for you, based on the seed code, but it doesn’t save unlockables and locks achievements. Maybe just bragging rights when you outscore a streamer.

The first step is to choose your deck – it’s the first layer of modifiers, which affect gameplay to your advantage (not always). At the beginning, you’ll only have the Red Deck available, which gives you one extra Discard.

Screenshot: This is where you choose your deck and difficulty.

You’ll be greeted by Jimbo (a Joker card, of course), which will guide you through the basics.
He also “says” a random punchline each time you win or lose a run.

1.2) The Basics
At the beginning, all of these stats and poker jargon will scare you. “What’s an Ante? What’s a Blind?”
These are classic poker terms, and long story short, they mean that the ante is your entry fee to sit at the table, while the blind is a forced bet that keeps the game moving – mechanics that Balatro twists into its roguelike rhythm.

Simply put, in Balatro, Blinds are levels and the Ante is a pack of three levels that end with a “Boss Blind”. You beat a small blind, a big blind and a boss blind, then you advance to the next Ante. The next Ante will require a higher score to beat.

You’ll have a limited number of “Hands” to play, and “Discards” to remove the cards you don’t need (max. 5 per Discard). Beat Ante 8 and you won – Endless Mode opens up if you want to experiment more with your build (but the chips required scale as well).
Out of hands and didn’t gain the required chips? Game over, no save, nothing.

Screenshot: This is where you see what’s coming.

1.3) How do you score?
This is easy, you score by playing poker combos. The usual suspects are present: Pairs, flushes, straights, full houses.
Instead of plain “score”, the game dressed it in chips. Each card has a base chips payout which is added to the poker hand’s chips.

To improve your chips gain, there’s also Mult, (multiplier), which is applied after the chips addition is done. Both are extremely important to understand towards your success.

Screenshot: The score gained by playing a level 22 Four of a Kind.

You’ll notice a ‘lvl.22’ next to this Four of a Kind – each hand type can level up, raising its base chip payout.
Read on to find out how to increase the level of the hand.

Start seeing the word “usually” and “normally” a whole lot, because this game gets twisted in many different ways.

2.1) The shop
Beat any blind, you usually get paid, you get access to the shop, until you start the next.
Here is where pros pause their game, then stand on the porch, thinking about their next move.

You’ll see two random cards (usually Jokers), two Booster Packs, and one Voucher.
You can Reroll – it normally starts at $5, climbs by $1 per roll, and resets next shop. Rerolling doesn’t restock packs or the voucher; packs refresh on the next shop, voucher refreshes after the boss blind.

Screenshot: Money remains relevant in the beginning as well as in the late game.

2.2) Jokers (the engine)
As of writing this, there are 150 of them, with rarities, to sprinkle in the RPG element: Common to Legendary.
Your deck plays poker; Jokers decide the score.
You slot them into a separate row (you start with five), and they layer effects on everything you do: flat +Chips, +Mult, xMult, per-card triggers, hand-condition bonuses, end-of-round payouts – the whole economy runs through them.
You’ll buy them in the Shop or find them from Buffoon packs.

You normally get 5 Joker slots to mix & match them according to your build, but round corners exist: a Negative-edition Joker doesn’t consume a slot, Antimatter voucher (see Vouchers below) gives +1 slot, and Ectoplasm Spectral Card (see Spectral Cards below) makes a random Joker Negative while shrinking your hand size, and the shrink scales each use. Joy, with consequences. Remember, order matters: Jokers fire left to right. Build your Jokers right and even a High Card will send you to the moon.

My favorite craziness Jokers include:

• DNA – copies a card (shoots the game in all directions if you have some interesting finds in your deck)
• Everyone’s favorite – the Blueprint (copies the ability of the Joker on its right) – double trouble
• In combination, of course with the Hanging Chad (triggers the first card in the played hand three times). Buffoon pack/Joker examples below.

2.3) Tarot cards (Arcana)
Single-use tweaks. Edit suits/ranks, add/remove/enhance cards, patch economy.
Examples:

• Death – converts one card into another (of your choice) – really powerful – you can basically play Five of a Kind hands.
• Hanged Man – Destroys two cards (kill the bloat).

Screenshot: Magician – Transforms two cards to lucky cards, Death – replaces one card with the copy of another, Justice – transforms a card to Glass.

2.4) Planet cards (Celestial)
They level up the poker hands (ex., Straight, Full House), permanently boosting its base value for the run. Celestial Pack pick below.

Screenshot: Mars – upgrade Four of a Kind, Saturn – upgrade Straight, Earth – upgrade Full House

2.5) Vouchers
Permanent, run-long perks you buy in the shop.
There are 32, arranged in 16 pairs: a base voucher (usually $10) that unlocks its stronger partner (another $10).

Examples you’ll actually feel:

• Blank → Antimatter: Antimatter = +1 Joker slot (Blank does nothing but unlocks it).
• Clearance Sale → Liquidation: shop items 25% → 50% off.
• Overstock → Overstock Plus: more card slots in the shop (3 → 4). Better odds for finding what you need.

Screenshot: Blank + Antimatter, Clearance Sale + Liquidation, Overstock + Overstock Plus.

2.6) Editions (FREE power – if you’re lucky)
Rarely appear in Shops & Booster Packs. They work on the cards in your deck AND jokers. Foil = +50 Chips, Holographic = +10 Mult, Polychrome = x1.5 Mult. On Jokers, Negative = +1 Joker slot (the Joker itself becomes slotless).

Screenshot: The basic Joker in Negative and Polychrome Editions.

2.7) Enhancements (playing cards that matter)
Can be obtained from card Booster Packs or enhancing your existing deck via Tarot Cards.

• Glass (x2 Mult, 25% chance to lose the card after scoring)
• Steel (x1.5 Mult while held in hand)
• Stone (+50 Chips; blank rank/suit, always scores)
• Wild (all suits)
• Lucky (chance +20 Mult / +$20)
• Gold ($3 if held in hand end of round)
• Bonus/Mult (+Chips/+Mult)

Screenshot: A selection of Enhanced Aces of Spades.

2.8) Seals (good luck getting those)
Can be obtained from card Booster Packs or enhancing your existing deck via Spectral Cards.

• Red: retrigger this card once (includes in-hand effects – meta?).
• Blue: creates a Planet for your final played hand if held at round end.
• Purple: creates a Tarot when discarded.
• Gold: $3 when this card scores.

Screenshot: All Seals. Gold, Red, Blue, Purple.

2.9) Spectral cards (extra spicy)
Without the Ghost Deck you’ll see them rarely, which makes their offers even more sinister. High swing, real costs:

• Ectoplasm (Negative a random Joker; -1 hand size, scaling)
• Ankh (duplicate one random Joker, destroy ALL the rest – bring Eternal Jokers if you’re on higher difficulties)
• Soul (spawn a Legendary Joker) – this one very rarely appears in Tarot Packs as well
• Ouija/Sigil (mess with ranks/suits)
• …and more.

Screenshot: I said I’m waiting till “Ante Two” to talk about the designs, but I love them so much I can’t help it.

Shops, Jokers, Vouchers, oddball packs and cursed Spectrals. Bend the rules but be careful, you have a limited amount of hands and discards. Keep playing and you’ll eventually have this dopamine blast, that somehow never dulls, no matter how many times you’ve felt it.

Balatro is letting you stack synergies until infinity… and then it slaps you with a reality check. Enter the moments where your run lives or dies:
Boss Blinds, Tags, and dangers that laugh at your carefully built engine.

3.1) Boss Blinds
Every Ante ends with one. They look like normal Blinds, but each comes strapped with a modifier: one suit debuffed, cards disabled, multipliers neutered, or chip counts throttled. Some are mild annoyances; others force you to rethink your entire deck mid-run. Ante 8, the final one before entering Endless Mode, is extra painful.
If you can’t adapt, you’re toast.

Deadly examples include:

• The Mouth – Only one hand type can be played for the round
• The Plant – All face cards are debuffed (score zero)
• Verdant Leaf – All cards debuffed until 1 Joker is sold

Screenshot: All blinds arranged by BalatroWiki🔗 with some helpers in the background.

3.2) Tags
Skip a Blind (can’t skip Boss Blinds), grab a Tag – a small perk that changes the odds. Extra reroll, shop discount, bonus pack, or something more exotic. But there’s a cost: you lose access to the Shop you skipped. No shop = no new Jokers, no boosters. Every Tag is a trade-off between short-term gain and long-term power.

Cool tags that are sometimes worth it:

• Negative – next base Edition Joker found in the shop is Negative (doesn’t take up a Joker slot). It might be a crap one, though.
• Double – Gives a copy of the next Tag selected (excluding Double Tags). This can still be stacked 😉 so combine 10 Doubles with another tag and watch the fireworks.
• Voucher – Adds a Voucher to the next shop (can be stacked with Double Tags) – you can essentially get a ton of Vouchers in a single shop, if you’ve got the cash.

Screenshot: The whole roster of tags, arranged by BalatroWiki🔗.

3.3) Meta Play and naneinf
Yes, there’s a meta play. Balatro looks like chaos, but it rewards planning: save to your interest cap, spend where Mults cascade, thin the deck, and order Jokers so +Chips → +Mult → xMult compounds cleanly. Retcon/Overstock/Liquidation Vouchers are the tempo. Just wait for the RNG to respond telepathically.

Ante 8 means you won the run, but, as previously stated, you can continue to experiment your build in “Endless Mode”. You basically continue the game, with ever higher chips required to beat the blinds.
Streamers managed to reach “naneinf” chips scored, which basically means “Not a Number e Infinity”, the maximum number possible for a float value in computer programming – bypassing a score of approximately 1.80×10^308 chips. The game doesn’t know what’s beyond that and concludes that it’s infinity. Well, what do you think comes after that? Yeah, you’re slapped with a “Score at least nan chips”.
Yeah you’ve beat Ante 8, but after that, no matter what you do, in the end, you’ll still lose.

Wanna reach naneinf yourself? Check out this crazy stream, and sincerely, good luck:

3.4) Balatro cheats
If you’ve ever wondered whether Balatro has a hidden cheat mode, spoiler: it does, straight in the game’s code. No shady trainers, no external hacks. Here’s the lowdown (v1.0.1o-FULL, doesn’t disable achievements, Windows & Mac):

1. Locate the game files

• Windows (Steam, 7-zip required): Right-click Balatro → Properties → Installed Files → Browse → Balatro.exe Right-Click → Open Archive.
• Mac (Steam): Right-click Balatro → Properties → Installed Files → Balatro.app Right-click → Show Package Contents → Resources → balatro.love → Open with Unarchiver → Enter the Balatro folder.

1. Open the engine folder and controller.lua with Notepad or Textedit
2. Find the line if not_RELEASE_MODE then
3. Simply change the line to if _RELEASE_MODE then
4. Save, overwrite in 7-zip (or pack the archive back on Mac)

That’s it. Now when in-game, you can hold TAB for a suite of cheats. I’ll let you discover them. If you ever want to revert and feel better about yourself, do the exact same steps but change that line back to “if not_RELEASE_MODE then“

1.1) The Jokers
Since I was a kid, a weird and curious one, I’ve been deeply drawn to small, detailed drawings: stickers, candy wrappers, and especially cards. And here we are, back on cards (didn’t expect it, no?). Experts say that when something truly clicks, as my pull toward this game did, it usually traces back to a childhood-rooted feeling.

The Jokers in Balatro triggered this exact feeling for me, a mix of nostalgia, wonder and curiosity. I feel like 8-year old Theo again, not grinding to Ante 39, but unlocking each Joker just to see its art. It took a while to unlock all 150, took it as a summer quest, but it felt amazing. Even now, I still feel the waves of awe, still hitting me while retreating like low tide.
I’m not alone in this. On Reddit, people debate whether LocalThunk hid a secret message in the designs. Others still stumble on pixel-sized details and share them online.

I took a long time to decide on my top 8. Below, you’ll find a selection of my favorite Jokers, the ones that sparked the nostalgia feeling – in the first row, and in the second – the ones that strike me as simply genius ideas.

Screenshot: Blending nostalgia, humor and clever design.

1.2) Retro Psychedelia
Earlier, I’ve promised that we would linger a bit on the title screen. Especially on the blend of colors swirling in the background. I dont know why – but it reminds me of the melting screen effect of DOOM. See a comparison below – is this nostalgia again, or some obsession-inducing sorcery?

Combine this swirly background with the “floating” style of the UI and it’s a hit. Sprinkle some more retro effects and it’s a vibe.

1.3) Mastery in Design
These cards are miniature artworks. Instantly recognizable (again, like DOOM’s Monster Sprites!) and atmospheric. Each set carries its own visual language.

• The Tarot Cards evoke mysticism with bold symbolism and flat colors – looking like they’ve just been dug up from an archaeological site.
• Spectral cards have shiny faces, reminding us of the supernatural. The eerie sensation when given the chance to choose one, almost feel like they’ve come from somewhere else.
• Planet Cards – if you look closely, you’ll see the Hand combination they serve, in the bottom of each card. Creating Planet X for Five of a Kind is genius – perfectly describes the game’s essence – mysterious, abnormal, and outside the box.

2.1) LouisF’s 20 minute masterloop
There’s something about Balatro’s audio that flips an old switch for me; the bond feels abnormally strong. I remember begging my parents for a proper soundcard so I can hear the DOOM MIDI tracks “correctly”, the Quake II CD OST by Sonic Mayhem or Age of Empires: Rise of Rome’s extra in-game MIDI. While listening to LouisF’s Balatro loop, all of these memories poured in. And I’ve yet to see a daily 4-hour Balatro stream where the music gets muted.

This is the “hypnotic” factor of this game: visuals that steal the mind, with music that carries the ritual onwards. The music is masterfully crafted, way too good for a Fiverr contract. If you don’t want to scroll back up, here’s the full OST again.

Something feels rather strange, unholy at times, like Jack Black in “The Pick of Destiny”. I didn’t want to wait any longer and I’ve pulled my .py Waveform Analyzer (available in nova, here🔗). The Waveform Analyzer saves four PNGs out of an audio file:

• Waveform: overall loudness/shape over time.
• Spectrogram (Linear Hz): raw frequency content; (lows/mids/highs).
• Spectrogram (Log scale): same thing but “human-hearing shaped,” so printed patterns are more relatable.
• Dynamics (RMS): Root Mean Square – calculated by finding the square root of the mean of the squared amplitude values over a specific time window. Dynamics help to understand the overall energy of a sound file, for visualising the range of loud and soft passages over time (any secret ingredient here?).

Here’s an amateur view of what I hear and see, I guess (I extracted the Main Theme from the game files):

• Steady rhythm and beat – not disturbing, it’s there to remind you that an audio track is playing if you ever lose yourself in counting how much Flushes you need to beat the Small Blind of Ante 8.
• The keyboard main hook – Always present in the mids. So, not piercing, and not demanding attention. The last note of the main hook has a note repeat retrig for variation, maybe this is where the “hypnotic” comes from. An arpeggiator engine (during the harp moment) plays on the second “verse” expanding on the otherwordly and hopeful RNG theme.
• Atmosphere – filled with all kinds of keyboard programs arranged to represent the main hook – for it to set into your neurons arranged exactly as it was meant to be, forever.
• Highs – kept strictly Retro for identity. Again, nothing that demands your attention, lets you reflect on the game (or whatever else you’re doing).

The sections change just enough to give your brain micro-novelty, positioned evenly so it works for hours on end – clearly, the thing just works.

Screenshot: However you look at it, the track is brilliant, ritualistic.

2.2) The Sound Effects
Do you feel a warm, soothing sensation the moment you hear the highest pitched xMult ding? You’re not the only one. LocalThunk most likely took lessons from Slots sound effects (old and new, as well) and wrapped them in a safe, pay-only-once-on-Steam method. So now we can experience the euphoria our ancestors felt when they filled a line of Tomes in Book of Ra, to trigger multiple free spins.

The fire + organ effects in the background when you’ve bypassed the required score in one hand – are true dopamine factories. You feel all your hard work deckbuilding converge into this one amazing show.

Below I’ve added some sound effects, extracted from the game files.

The sharp typeface, ceremonial packs, and slot-machine dings are small assets working in tandem for world-building.
The Jokers’ cardfaces are the wonder, the soundtrack is the heartbeat, and the retro effects are the sense space and time. One of the reasons Balatro sent me back to my childhood – and I’m sure it did this to many others – is that all of this jumble of card game “stuff”, pretty confusing at the beginning but conquered through curiosity and time, recreates that early feeling of learning how the world works.
It’s another chance to experience those feelings, which is rare. There aren’t many entertainment opportunities that made me feel this way and I’m sure you will relate, if you played it for a bit.

The art of Balatro is vibe, curiosity, nostalgia, beating the cheap thrills big budget titles give us.