Local Thunk Avoided Roguelikes in Balatro Development, Except Slay the Spire

Balatro developer Local Thunk has shared a comprehensive account of the game's development journey on his personal blog, revealing a unique approach to game creation. Throughout the development of Balatro, Local Thunk consciously avoided playing roguelike games, with one notable exception. As of December 2021, he decided to steer clear of other roguelike titles, emphasizing that this choice was not about creating a superior game but about enjoying the process of game development as a hobby.

"I want to be crystal clear here and say that this was not because I thought it would result in a better game, this was because making games is my hobby, releasing them and making money from them is not, so naively exploring roguelike design (and especially deckbuilder design, since I had never played one before) was part of the fun for me. I wanted to make mistakes, I wanted to reinvent the wheel, I didn’t want to borrow tried-and-true designs from existing games. That likely would have resulted in a more tight game but it would have defeated the purpose of what I love about making games," Local Thunk explained.

However, a year and a half later, he broke his rule once by downloading and playing Slay the Spire. "Holy shit," he wrote, "now **that** is a game." His initial intention was to study how Slay the Spire handled controller inputs for card games, but he found himself deeply engaged with the game. He expressed relief at having avoided it earlier, as it might have influenced his design choices too heavily.

Local Thunk's blog post offers fascinating insights into the development process. Initially, the project folder was simply named "CardGame," and it remained unchanged throughout development. The working title for the game was "Joker Poker" for much of its development cycle.

He also discussed several features that were considered but ultimately scrapped, including:

• "a version where the only way to upgrade anything is to upgrade the cards in your deck in a sort of pseudo-shop, and those cards can be upgraded multiple times (think like Super Auto Pets, pets have different XP/levels when combined, same idea)"
• "a separate currency for rerolls outside of %1quot;"
• "a ‘golden seal’ to be added to playing cards when you skip all blinds that returns that card to hand after it has been played"

An interesting anecdote shared was how Balatro ended up with 150 Jokers. This was the result of a miscommunication with the publisher, Playstack. Local Thunk initially mentioned having 120 Jokers, but a subsequent meeting led to a misunderstanding, resulting in the decision to increase the number to 150.

Lastly, Local Thunk shared the origin of his developer name, "Local Thunk," which stems from a programming joke. His partner, while learning to code in R, humorously suggested naming variables "thunk." Combined with the Lua programming language's use of the "local" keyword, "local thunk" was born.

For those interested in the full story, Local Thunk's blog provides a wealth of information. IGN has praised Balatro, awarding it a 9/10 and describing 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."