Local Thunk Didn't Play Any Roguelike Games During Balatro's Development...Except Slay the Spire

Balatro developer, Local Thunk, recently shared a fascinating development history on their personal blog, revealing a surprising detail: they avoided playing rogue-likes during Balatro's creation—except for one.

Their blog details a conscious decision, starting December 2021, to abstain from playing rogue-likes. This wasn't to create a superior game, but rather a personal choice. Game development was a hobby, not a business; the joy lay in the experimental process, embracing mistakes and reinventing the wheel, rather than borrowing established designs. This approach, while potentially sacrificing polish, aligned with their creative process.

However, this self-imposed rule cracked a year and a half later with the arrival of Slay the Spire. Thunk's reaction? "Holy shit," they wrote, "now that is a game." The reason for this single exception? Debugging controller implementation for a card game. The experience, however, proved their self-imposed rule wise, as Slay the Spire's design is undeniably compelling and could have easily led to unintentional imitation.

Thunk's post-mortem is packed with insightful anecdotes. The game's initial working folder was unimaginatively titled "CardGame" and remained unchanged throughout much of development. The working title, "Joker Poker," also provides a glimpse into the game's early stages.

Several scrapped features are detailed, including: a pseudo-shop system for card upgrades (similar to Super Auto Pets), a separate currency for rerolls, and a "golden seal" mechanic for replaying cards.

The number of Jokers (150) resulted from a miscommunication with publisher Playstack, where an initial mention of 120 Jokers was later discussed as 150. Thunk deemed 150 a better number and adjusted accordingly.

Finally, the origin of the name "Local Thunk" is explained. It's a programming joke stemming from a conversation with their partner learning R programming, where the term "thunk" was used to describe variable naming. The Lua programming language's use of the "local" keyword completed the moniker.

Thunk's blog post offers a much deeper dive into Balatro's creation. IGN, a strong advocate for the game, awarded it a 9/10, praising its endlessly satisfying deck-building mechanics and addictive gameplay.