Balatro creator was "shocked" at his poker roguelike's high review scores: "I don’t think I would have rated Balatro higher than an 8 and I made the damn thing"

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No need to be modest

Balatro Joker art
(Image credit: Playstack / LocalThunk)

It can sometimes be difficult to accurately assess your work, and the task becomes even more arduous when you're working on an entertaining poker roguelike game. For example, Balatro creator LocalThunk was stunned to see such high review scores pouring in after the game released in 2024.

"February 19th rolls around," he recalls in a detailed timeline posted to his blog. "The 19th is the review embargo day, and [publisher] Playstack did a truly exceptional job getting this game in the hands of traditional media to write their reviews before launch."

"I told my partner that I won’t be making any plans until the end of March," he remembers.

Ashley Bardhan
Ashley Bardhan
Senior Writer

Ashley is a Senior Writer at GamesRadar+. She's been a staff writer at Kotaku and Inverse, too, and she's written freelance pieces about horror and women in games for sites like Rolling Stone, Vulture, IGN, and Polygon. When she's not covering gaming news, she's usually working on expanding her doll collection while watching Saw movies one through 11.

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