The first time I read about Balatro I saw it defined as "poker roguelite" and I wasn't particularly interested by the pitch. Some reviewers I follow lauded it as the next indie sensation like Loop Hero, Inscryption or Vampire Survivors were in the past, and that made me curious enough to try the demo during the latest Steam Fest.

By the time I got to Ante 2 in the tutorial run I had understood the praise.

The concept is simple, but the depth and variability makes it endlessly replayable and addicting as crack. After 20-something hours my joker collection is currently at 2/3, but the joy of discovering how a specific combination of jokers and card bonuses works together to break your high score remains.

Visuals and sound work great, they've put a lot of work on the details to make it feel satisfying (I have muted the music though, it became repetitive after a while).

Session length and controller support makes it a perfect game for commuting. I've played both on laptops and on my Steam Deck and it works great on either, except for a couple of minor annoyances using the latter:
- First, I'd recommend to tweak the input so you won't accidentally change focus with the touchpads.
- Also, perhaps as a consequence of the former, selecting cards from large hands (for example, +3 or 4 over the default hand size) could be glitchy.