Even Balatro’s creator has trouble finishing Balatro

Even Balatro’s developer, LocalThunk, is having a hard time completing Balatro, the roguelike card game he he designed

LocalThunk

Even Balatro’s developer, LocalThunk, is having a hard time completing Balatro, the roguelike card game he designed. LocalThunk posted on Twitter that he tried getting every achievement before Balatro’s mobile version launched and wasn’t able to do it.

• Read more: All of Balatro's legendary Jokers and how to unlock them

“Been trying to 100% Balatro for the first time since mobile launched, and holy s**t, I have some words for John Balatro,” he said.

The Blue Stake challenges and their -1 discard effect in particular were giving LocalThunk a hard time. You need to clear that stake to unlock Balatro’s Plasma deck– and, by extension, one of Balatro’s toughest achievements. LocalThunk still has the Orange Stake to clear as well to claim another special deck, and that one’s even more devious. After five rounds, your Joker might inflict a debuff on you.

Like the -1 Discard Blue stake - get a grip Johnny B, that’s some garbage

— localthunk (@LocalThunk) October 27, 2024

That scenario is pretty common thanks to LocalThunk’s open approach to designing Balatro. In a separate post on Twitter, he said Balatro ended up with 150 Jokers instead of 120 on account of a mistake his publisher, PlayStack, made during a meeting (thanks, GamesRadar).

“I once told Playstack (my publisher) that the full version of Balatro would have 120 Jokers,” LocalThunk said. “In a meeting later that week, they mentioned something about '150 Jokers' and instead of correcting them I just made 30 more Jokers.”

He didn’t even have plans for the extra 30 Jokers at the time. They just happened because, as he said to one commenter on Twitter, “life finds a way,” which is handy for us, seeing as some of the extra Jokers he came up with offer useful multipliers that make the game slightly less grueling. 

Read more: Dungeon Clawler may be the next Balatro, but Google is hiding it

can't remember all of them but most of this page would be in the ether if I spoke up pic.twitter.com/niZYCcpuTB

— localthunk (@LocalThunk) October 29, 2024

Not, however, enough to help LocalThunk get through Blue Stake’s challenge, or me to get through the Green Stake challenge, but that’s another matter. Maybe the Balatro gameplay update coming in 2025 will make things a little easier to navigate.