Month: April 2025

Balatro: The Joy of Making Numbers Go Up

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This entry is part 1 of 1 in the series Balatro

Introduction

Balatro is a well-regarded roguelite indie game that I have been playing since it arrived on Microsoft’s Game Pass.

Despite knowing nothing about card games in real life, I really like this one. While it looks like a card game, the real focus is on planning and building a cohesive strategy on the fly, using the bonuses that become available in any given run. Its brevity and low-stress, cheerful nature make it the perfect game to fit around real life.

For roguelite / deckbuilder fans, and especially for Game Pass subscribers, Balatro is an easy recommendation.

What do you do in the game? (Synergise jokers.)

This is a Balatro round in progress:

Taking on a final boss in Balatro. The “Spare Trousers” joker gets a bonus to its + multiplier every time the player uses a “Two Pair” hand. Over long games, this can turn it into a powerhouse.

The goal of each round is simple — play card hands to reach the target number of chips, visible at the top left of the screen. Failing to meet the target is a game over. Meeting the target leads to the shop where I can unlock different bonuses, and then progress to the next, harder round.

The key to Balatro is that it’s not actually about the cards at the bottom of the screen, it’s about the jokers — the (typically) up to five bonuses visible at the top of the screen. Typically, a good setup will have a minimum of three types of jokers:

  • Chips (for example, “+50 chips” or “+2 chips for each card remaining in the deck”)
  • Additive (for example, the Abstract Joker gives “+3 multiplier per joker”, for +15 total with five jokers)
  • Multiplicative (for example, the Baseball Card joker gives “x1.5 mult per uncommon joker”, so having 3 uncommon jokers will increase the multiplier by 1.5^3 or 3.375 times)

Then add “support” or “income” jokers as needed.

For example, if I play a card hand worth 10 chips and with a base multiplier of 1, the maths will look like this:

  • Start with 10 chips
  • + 50 chips from joker = 60 chips
  • 1 base multiplier +15 multiplier = 16 multiplier so far
  • 16.0 multiplier * (1.5^3) = total 54 multiplier
  • Final number of chips = 60 chips * 54 multiplier = 3,240

Not a bad increase from a starting point of 10!

And this is why I say Balatro is about jokers first and cards second. Card hands that seem terrible at first glance, such as playing a single card (“High Card”), become appealing with an appropriate joker setup: High Card builds never have to worry about drawing the right card or combination of cards.

Conversely, powerful hands are often challenging to set up: a Straight (5 consecutive cards) is mathematically unlikely, unless:

  • I have jokers that make this easier — for instance, by allowing non-consecutive numbers (the “Shortcut” joker); by allowing 4 cards instead of 5 (“Four Fingers”); or both.
  • I have tweaked my deck along the way (for example, by choosing bonuses that adjust cards’ strength or that allow me to delete cards)

Besides jokers, Balatro contains many other bonuses that can be unlocked along the way. For example:

  • “Tarot” cards affect the playing cards themselves — giving them more chips, bonuses to their multiplier, or adjusting their suit or strength.
  • “Planet” cards strengthen card hands, making them worth more chips and increasing their multiplier.

As such, while playing individual rounds is about trying to maximise chips to beat the target (and sometimes, taking advantage of other bonuses before beating the round), playing an overall run is about answering different questions:

  • What jokers have I encountered / do I have available?
  • How can I build a cohesive strategy around these jokers?
  • How can I choose other bonuses and adjust my deck to support that strategy?

At times, this can feel like trying to assemble a plane in mid-air — and that makes it all the sweeter when a build comes together.

Facing down the final boss of another Balatro run. The “Joker Stencil” rewards players for having fewer jokers.

Short and sweet

Besides its core gameplay, I like several other aspects of Balatro:

  • It’s not particularly mentally taxing or stressful to play.
  • It’s short — a complete run takes maybe 1-1.5 hours.
  • Because of this, it’s short enough for its “roguelite” design to work — frequent Game Overs are tolerable (and less frustrating!) when it doesn’t take much time to start again and there isn’t much progress to lose.
  • This also makes it much friendlier to real life.

Conclusion

Balatro deserves its fame — it’s quick to play, deep (there are many paths to victory that tick the three vital boxes of + chips, + multiplier, and x multiplier), and satisfying when things come together. 

Now to see if I can beat that pesky Green Stake difficulty…

Endless Legend 2: Hands-on Preview

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This entry is part 1 of 1 in the series Endless Legend 2

Endless Legend was one of the most interesting 4X games of the last decade, with a unique setting and an array of imaginative, asymmetric playable factions. Now Endless Legend 2 is due to launch in Early Access later in 2025.

Here are my very early impressions, based on a preview build supplied by the game’s publisher — Hooded Horse. I already find it colourful and imaginative, with an engaging military layer. My questions, at this stage, generally relate to experience with the developer’s previous games rather than any specific concerns with this game.

What is Endless Legend 2 and what do you do in the game?

Endless Legend 2 is an upcoming “science-fantasy” or “planetary romance” 4X from Amplitude, the recently independent developers of the Endless Space series, the first Endless Legend, and Humankind.

EL2 builds on the classic 4X formula with mechanics such as heroes (with skill trees and gear), minor factions (who provide unique bonuses), and an evolving map — every so often, after a “Tidefall” event, coastal waters will recede to reveal new provinces and new resources.

The preview build goes up to turn 125, which still felt quite early (approximately the start of the third era on the tech tree). So far I have played two games:

  • My first game felt almost “RPG” or “fantasy 4x”-like. As I built my empire, I explored the map with a hero-led stack, followed quests, and cleared out neutral monsters from special locations.
  • My second game felt much more like a classic 4X, and I spent much of it at war against a powerful computer player.

What do I like?

I’ve already noticed plenty of interesting ideas and things I like in EL2, including:

  • Nomadic opening phase — The player spends the first few turns exploring, picking up goody huts, and searching for a suitable spot to build the first city, which feels like a shorter version of the Neolithic era in Humankind.
  • Distinct factions, as is typical for Amplitude’s science fiction & fantasy games:
    • The Kin of Sheredyn — a name that Endless Space players might recall — are “techno-superstitious” humans who receive production bonuses and can periodically call on “divine” active abilities.
    • The rather more interesting Aspect are economically-focused and receive bonuses to influence (the resource used for diplomacy and city expansion) and from spreading coral to tiles.
    • The Sheredyn and the Aspect also receive slightly different bonuses from allied minor factions. The Aspect bonuses seem more generous from what I’ve seen, but they also need to spend influence as upkeep.
    • The two factions play noticeably differently — as the Sheredyn I built units and structures, whereas playing the Aspect, it was more efficient to rush-buy them instead.
    • The Necrophages (AI-only in the current build) can move armies between burrows, giving them a dangerous amount of strategic mobility. In my second game, the Necrophages used burrows to move armies behind me, meaning I always had to watch my capital against unexpected attacks. 
  • Combat — Humankind did this very, very well, and Endless Legend 2 builds on that foundation. Armies move around as stacks on the strategic map, and then “unfold” to fight tactical battles, still on the same terrain as the main map. A few things I’ve noticed:
    • Hero abilities can be potent — it came as a nasty surprise when an enemy ranged hero fired an AoE volley that hit several of my units!
    • Fighting on home ground can be a huge advantage — if there is a nearby city, units can run back to the city walls for shelter. This has allowed me to turn one-sided defeats into one-sided victories (it seems that in the current build, only certain units attack over the walls, which seems a bit too powerful compared to how Humankind handled this).
  • Aesthetics — As usual for Amplitude, the art is excellent. The world is vibrant, colourful, and atmospheric. Zooming in reveals plenty of little details, such as sentries standing outside neutral villages.
My second game. Running my Aspect archers back to the city and behind the walls let them massacre a Necrophage horde. The Necrophage force comprised almost entirely melee units, who didn’t seem able to storm the walls.

What are my questions so far?

So far, EL2 has potential. My questions include:

  • Quality of execution / design cohesiveness — This is where Amplitude games tend to fall down. How well will the disparate game mechanics tie together? How good will the AI be?
  • Late game? As one specific example, how well will the late game, another Amplitude bugbear, hold up?
  • See my reflections on Humankind in 2024, years after release.

Conclusions

I’m already intrigued by Endless Legend 2 — so much so that I’ve started my third game. Though it’s still early, I feel reasonably confident that it will play to Amplitude’s traditional strengths in aesthetics and sheer imagination, while building on the ideas and systems in Humankind. Adding more playable factions will see the variety grow. My biggest questions are about how well it can avoid Amplitude’s traditional flaws.