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 intentionally avoided playing most rogue-likes during Balatro's creation—except for one.

Their development timeline notes a conscious decision in December 2021 to abstain from playing rogue-likes. Thunk explains this wasn't to improve the game, but rather to embrace the experimental nature of their hobby. The goal was to learn through mistakes and independent design, even if that meant reinventing the wheel instead of borrowing from established designs. This approach, while potentially leading to a less polished game, aligned with their personal enjoyment of game development.

However, this self-imposed rule cracked a year and a half later with a single exception: Slay the Spire. Thunk's reaction? "Holy shit," they wrote, "now that is a game." The reason for this one exception? Troubleshooting controller implementation in their own game. Investigating Slay the Spire's controller handling led to an unexpected deep dive, thankfully avoided earlier to prevent unintentional design copying.

Thunk's post-mortem offers many other intriguing insights. For example, the game's initial working folder was named "CardGame" and remained unchanged throughout development, and the working title was "Joker Poker." Several scrapped features are also detailed, including:

• A system where card upgrades were the sole method of character progression, similar to Super Auto Pets' leveling system.
• A separate currency for rerolls, distinct from the percentage-based system.
• A "golden seal" mechanic that returned played cards to the hand after skipping all blind draws.

The number of Jokers in the final game, 150, also has an amusing origin story: a miscommunication during a meeting with publisher Playstack. Thunk initially mentioned 120 Jokers, but a later discussion about 150 led to the adoption of the larger number, considered a superior choice.

Finally, the blog post reveals the origin of the name "Local Thunk"—a programming joke stemming from a conversation with their partner learning R programming. The combination of Lua's "local" keyword and their partner's suggestion "thunk" birthed the developer handle.

Thunk's blog offers a much more comprehensive account of Balatro's development. IGN, clearly impressed, awarded Balatro a 9/10, praising it as "A deck-builder of endlessly satisfying proportions…the sort of fun that threatens to derail whole weekend plans…"