Transcription
Since its release, Balatro has taken the industry by storm, becoming a fan favorite and etching itself as an instant classic in the roguelike genre. And you're about to hear me glaze this game for the next 10 minutes [music] or so, whether it's the clever references or just elements of the game that put a smile on my face. Here are 28 tiny details that make Balatro a masterpiece.
Balatro's art style is very particular, and everything is on purpose. If you take a look at the black hole spectral card, you'll notice that the sides are being sucked in. And that's because there's a black hole in the middle pulling it in.
The details get even crazier if you look closely at the planet cards. You'll notice each planet card has its position in the solar system highlighted at the top, except for the five-of-a-kind planet card, which is supposed to represent a rogue planet which doesn't belong to any solar system and is just a big rock floating on its own in space.
If you look at the Ceres planet card, which is a dwarf planet, [music] it has these dots highlighted, which is in between Jupiter and Mars. This is supposed to represent the asteroid belt where Ceres is located, and the artwork also shows asteroids surrounding the dwarf [music] planet. The same thing applies with Eris, which is another dwarf planet that is located beyond Pluto, [music] and this is represented at the top as well.
But what I really like about some of the artwork is how it's basically a nod to its own ability and name. For example, brainstorm, which depicts a rough sketch of a joker on a napkin, basically showing what someone brainstorming a joker would look like. And because brainstorm copies the most left joker, the two most left bubbles and the left eye are circled. Just like how the blueprint joker is looking to the right because it copies a joker to the right.
Another artwork Easter egg that I thought was really cool was on cloud nine, which shows a nine that's made out of clouds surrounded by other clouds. And if you count all the clouds on the card, there's nine of them.
But there's also jokers that are named based on their ability. Now, none of these are confirmed, but I like to think that the abilities of these jokers are the reasons why they have their name. Stuntman gives you minus two hands, and this might be because real-life stuntmen will do tricks on bikes without using their hands.
The Hanging Chad Joker retriggers the first card twice because during the 2000 US presidential election, people submitted votes by punching a hole into a piece of paper, and the paper from this hole is referred to as a chad. But there were so many votes where the chad wasn't fully removed from the paper, and it was left kind of hanging there. This was very controversial at the time, and people were saying that the votes with the hanging chad shouldn't count, and they were forced to recount all the votes multiple times, which in essence is why the Hanging Chad Joker retriggers because they had to recount the votes.
Now, the Hanging Chad Joker isn't the only joker based on a historic event. The whole process of a Gros Michel Joker going from a Cavendish Joker was based on real history as well. Originally, the Gros Michel banana made up the majority of bananas people would consume, but after a disease by the name of Fusarium wilt completely destroyed these bananas, society switched over to Cavendish bananas. Much like how the Gros Michel banana must go extinct first before you have access to the Cavendish. And that's why it says extinct whenever the Gros Michel Joker gets removed from your joker lineup.
And that's another small detail I love. For every consumable and edible joker, they have a unique text pop-up when they run out of fumes. The popcorn, bean, and ramen joker will all say eaten when they're getting deleted. The seltzer joker will say drank after 10 hands, and the ice cream joker will say melted once it's finished.
The Spare Trousers Joker gives you more mult for every hand that contains a two pair. If you think about it in real life, having spare trousers basically means you have two pairs of pants.
Now, the Scholar Joker goes a little deeper. It gives you more mult and chips for aces because if you're a scholar, you typically ace tests. But also more specifically, it gives you plus four mult and 20 chips for every ace. Four mult, 20 chips, 420. And aces can be considered low, but more importantly in this case, aces can also be considered high.
Another very cool detail with the joker artwork is the color coordination between the five rare jokers that revolve around the playing hands and their common joker counterpart. You'll notice the color schemes on the rare jokers match the ones on their common versions.
And the last thing about the joker artwork that I'm going to talk about that I really love is that it's mandatory for every joker to have joker written out on it, even if it's unsuspecting like in to-do [music] list, where the first letter of each word spells out joker. And although it doesn't say joker on any of the legendary cards, the names of actual jokers in history are written because they became legends in their own right having their name etched in history. It makes sense that their actual names are written on these legendary cards.
Now, I want to move on to actual aspects of the game that make it so fun and replayable. Starting off small, I want to talk about the blank voucher. The first time I ever came across it and saw that it literally does nothing but cost $10 had me confused. I ended up buying it and was waiting for something cool to happen, but there was nothing. Come later, I find out you need to buy it 10 times before unlocking its counterpart, the antimatter voucher, which is arguably the best voucher in the game giving you an extra joker slot. And this was honestly a beautiful metaphor for life. Sometimes you're going to have to sacrifice a lot, and although it may seem like the sacrifice is for nothing, it'll actually lead to something great. So, for anyone chasing a goal or dream, and you feel like it's not worth it, just keep at it because one day something good will come from it, even though it may not feel like it right now.
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The next thing I want to talk about is the flames that show up over the score. Whenever you score a hand so high it flat-out beats the whole ante score, flames appear over the numbers, which is such a satisfying but smart way to show that you absolutely destroyed it. After playing for so many hours, it's become a good litmus test in higher antes to see if I can beat the score with ease. And it's gotten to a point where if I don't see the fire, I know I'm usually in trouble.
My next favorite aspect of the game is endless mode. The first time I ever beat a run in Balatro, I remember thinking to myself, "Man, I have such a good build. I wish I could keep playing to see how far it goes." And I was surprised to see the big blue endless mode button pop up, meaning I could carry out my run even further to see what it's capable of. And at this point, my mind was running with endless possibilities of what I could do to make that number go as high as possible. But this got me thinking, how high could I actually score? What's the limit? And as I learned more about the game, I learned about the elusive NaN Inf score, which is the absolute limit for what you can get in this game. NaN Inf is around E308, meaning you need to score really, really, really high, and the creator of the game, Local Thunk, never really thought about people getting to this number. NaN Inf stands for not a number to the power of infinity, which is actually an error message because the game can't compute a number that big. And instead of fixing this error, Local Thunk let it become an iconic part of the game, and now it's become a staple in the Balatro community. It's beautiful to see that an accidental error was intentionally left unfixed just because it makes it all the more special.
Another aspect of the game that gets my endorphins going is the sound design. I personally don't think I will ever get sick of hearing that satisfying click whenever I select a card, and it just matches so perfectly. I don't think a better job could have been done when it comes to this. It reinforces the game's addictive feedback loop without ever becoming overwhelming. The sounds escalate in intensity as your score climbs, creating a sense of momentum and excitement that mirrors the escalating stakes of the run.
But let's talk about the actual music in the game, which is created by a freelance music producer by the name of Lewis F, who was contacted on Fiverr by Local Thunk to create [music] this brilliant soundtrack. And since then, it's become absolutely iconic. There's been multiple different versions created by fans spanning across almost every genre you can think of. We have jazz Balatro. We have disco Balatro. We even have metal Balatro. >> [music] [music] >> I could keep going. I mean, people really like this soundtrack and it shows. Not to mention the medley that was put together at the Game Awards in 2024, where the keytarist went absolutely crazy playing the main chords that everyone recognizes. I literally floated on my chair the first time I heard this.
And the last thing I absolutely love about this game is the fact that Local Thunk himself stated that he'll never add any in-game purchases the way that these AAA games do like FIFA or Call of Duty. He doesn't want to tarnish the essence of the game by polluting it with money-grabbing tactics like these greedy corporations do. And let's be real, Balatro fans, including myself, would definitely be willing to drop more money in this game, meaning more profit for Local Thunk. But he values his game so much that no amount of money could get him to ruin Balatro with in-game purchases.
But Local Thunk, if you are listening, feel free to drop some real-life booster packs. I would love to spend money and start collecting these jokers in real life. It would be even cooler if some of them came polychrome so they're even more rare. I mean, I know it's going to seem like money grabbing, but I honestly don't care. Just do it. I I'll give you my money, please.
And if you want to learn more about the references and meanings behind the Jokers in Balatro, click the video on the screen right now. Okay, that's the end of the video. Thank you guys for watching. Bye.