My usual schtick for my game of the year is to have two. One From game and one non-From game. I thought this year was going to be different (only the one From game) because other than the obvious, I didn’t really love any other game I played this year. The two I mentioned in yesterday’s post, were enjoyable and worth my time. However, I would not consider either of them even close to game of the year, even if either of them had been released in 2024.
By the way, when I talk about my games of the year, I am talking about the games I played this year, not games that were necessarily released in this year. Hey. It’s my list, and I’ll do whatever I want with it. That means making up silly names for the awards and handing them out almost haphazardly. I wanted to give a shout-out to games I quite enjoyed this year, but that did not make it onto my top tier list.
It’s late, so I’m going to wait until tomorrow for that. For tonight, I’m going to write about one game. I’m calling it…ah…let me think.
The game that I studiously ignored for several months because I knew better, but it really is the indie GOTY
Balatro (LocalThunk)
I was not ready for this game. At all. It released on February 20th, but it didn’t become a part of the collective consciousness until it was released on mobile in late September. Then, everyone was playing it and everyone was talking about it. I didn’t pay much attention because I’m not really into card games. I tried several that just did not grab my attention, and I thought this would be more of the same.
Let’s be real. If you just hear about the game, you’re not going to be impressed. “It’s a poker game, but it’s also a roguelike/roguelite. Oh, you can buy different kinds of cards to supplement your build (stone cards, glass cards, steel cards, etc). And you can level up different hands (one pair, two pair, three of a kind, etc.). In addition, there are different editions of the cards, and there are tarot cards, planetary cards, etc., as well. I have included the launch trailer below that summarizes the game neatly. Now that I’ve played it, the trailer makes sense. If I had watched it beforehand, I would have been confused and probably not into it.
The look of it is very simple. Yes, there are swirls of colors, but it’s pretty basic. I turn the music off when I play because I like to watch videos as I play games, and the music on repeat bothers my brain.
In other words, it’s not the looks nor the music that make it my indie game of the year. It’s all fits together well, but it’s not something that is going to make anyone gasp in awe.
In talking about Ghost of Tsushima yesterday, I mentioned how jaw-droppingly gorgeous the game was. It’s stunning in its visuals, and it’s absolutely dripping in atmosphere. The colors are gorgeous and rich, and the world is saturated to the gills.
Balatro, on the other hand, does not leave an impression on my brain as to the looks and music.
Gameplay, though? That’s a whole nother story. From the second I started playing, I was hooked. It has that mystical ‘just one more run’ feel to it, and I lost several hours a day to playing it. There are fifteen decks, and I have two left to unlock. I have won a run with every deck I have unlocked (thirteen). Once I thought of each deck as a character, the game made more sense to me. Each deck is different from the other, and you have to win on different stake levels with each one. There’s the white stake level, which is the base. There are no restrictions.
Once you win on white stake level, then it’s the red stake level. On this level, you get no reward for winning the small blind (first round in any ante), so it’s better to skip it and take the prize for doing so. Next is the green stake level, and on that level, after the first ante (small blind, big blind, boss blind), each round has a higher chip count you have to beat.
Black stake level adds eternal jokers to the shop. Eternal jokers cannot be sold or destroyed so if you take one, you’re stuck with it for the whole run. I didn’t find that stake that hard, but my beloved blue deck has done me well. Blue deck is by far my favorite. One more hand per round, which is huge. It’s the Azazel (Binding of Isaac, Edmund McMillen) of this game in that makes runs much easier.
Next up is blue stake, and that is one less discard. This is much harder, and I have yet to win it. After that is orange stake and gold stake, but I don’t know what the limiters are for those. I have read grumblings about the different stake levels being not well-balanced, but I can’t speak to that.
The thing is, you have to win a stake on each level with each deck. This is how roguelikes work, but for some reason, I didn’t realize I would have to do that in this game. I’m not sure I want to do it. Right now, I’m working an unlocking all the decks and jokers, and I have to say that my ardor for the game is starting to dampen.
My brain can only do so much thinking, and I think I’m coming up to the limit of brain cell bending I can do. More to the point, I’m starting to feel the grind. That doesn’t mean I’ll stop doing it, but I’m in that ‘ugh I wish I didn’t have to do this’ stage.
I’ll be fair. It’s on me for compulsively playing the game past the point of enjoyment. That’s the way I play these games, and it’s for better and for worse.
This is a truly innovative game, and it’s hard to believe it was made my one man. He simply wanted to make a game that reminded him of the card games he loved as a kid (or something like that), and this was the result.
It’s amazing. So many AAA games that cost hundreds of millions of dollars flopped upon release while this little game that could sold 3.5 million copies.
It has restored my faith in gaming, and it has reminded me that indie gaming is where it’s at. Yes, sometimes, you have to dig deep to find a gem of an indie game, but they are there.
Of the four games I’m noting for my end of the year awards, two are indie games and two are AAA. Well, one is for sure and the other is in name, but not in spirit. I’ll get to that in a future post. Other than those two AAA games, I have mostly played indies. Why? Because they don’t have to bow down to their coroporate overlords and/or develop a game by committee. When you have one to twenty people working on a game, you very much live and die by that collective. You can soar to the sun or crash into the ocean–and anywhere in between.
Balatro is the perfect example of a developer soaring as high as he could and not getting burned by the sun. He had a vision, and he could not be dissuaded. Now, he’s the talk of the town and celebrated for making a damn good game.
This is my indie game of the year (also known as the non-From game of the year). Now I see why it was so lauded and how damn addictive it is. I’ll be back tomorrow to talk about the games that didn’t quite make it to the top of my list, but were noteworthy, nonetheless.