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. Surprisingly, they reveal minimal roguelike game experience prior to creating Balatro—with one notable exception.

Their development timeline indicates a conscious decision in December 2021 to avoid playing further roguelikes. Thunk explains this wasn't about creating a superior game, but rather about prioritizing the inherent fun of the process of game creation. Experimentation and independent design were key, even if it meant reinventing the wheel instead of borrowing established designs. This approach, while potentially sacrificing polish, aligned with their personal enjoyment of game development.

This playthrough stemmed from troubleshooting controller implementation in Balatro. Intending only to study Slay the Spire's controller input handling for card games, Thunk instead became completely engrossed. They explicitly acknowledge avoiding the game earlier prevented unintentional design copying.

Thunk's post-mortem offers numerous other insightful details. The game's initial working folder was named "CardGame" and remained unchanged throughout development. The working title, for a significant period, was "Joker Poker."

Several scrapped features are also discussed, including:

• A system where card upgrades were the sole method of character progression, mimicking a pseudo-shop with multiple upgrade levels per card (similar to Super Auto Pets).
• A separate currency for rerolls, independent of the percentage-based system.
• A "golden seal" mechanic that returned a played card to hand after skipping all blind options.

The final number of Jokers (150) resulted from a miscommunication during discussions with publisher Playstack. Thunk initially proposed 120, but a later meeting suggested 150, a number they ultimately preferred.

Finally, Thunk explains the origin of their developer handle. It's a programming pun stemming from a conversation with their partner learning R programming. The phrase "local thunk," a reference to Lua variable declaration, was deemed so humorous it eventually became their online developer identity.

Local Thunk's blog post provides a far more extensive account of Balatro's creation. IGN awarded Balatro a 9/10, praising it as "A deck-builder of endlessly satisfying proportions, [it's] the sort of fun that threatens to derail whole weekend plans as you stay awake far too late staring into the eyes of a jester tempting you in for just one more run."