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 avoided playing most rogue-likes during Balatro's creation—with one notable exception.

Their development timeline shows a conscious decision in December 2021 to abstain from playing rogue-likes. Thunk explains this wasn't to create a better game, but rather to embrace the fun of experimental design. As a hobbyist developer, they prioritized the joy of making mistakes and reinventing the wheel, rather than relying on established designs. This approach, while potentially leading to a less polished game, aligned with their personal enjoyment of game development.

However, a year and a half later, this self-imposed rule was broken. After downloading Slay the Spire, Thunk exclaimed, "Holy shit, now that is a game." The reason? They were troubleshooting controller implementation and wanted to study Slay the Spire's approach to card game controls. They admit to being completely engrossed, thankfully avoiding it until then to prevent unintentional design copying.

Thunk's post-mortem offers other intriguing insights. The project's initial working folder was named "CardGame," a name that remained unchanged throughout much of development. The game also carried the working title "Joker Poker" for a significant period.

Several scrapped features are detailed, including: a system where card upgrades were the sole method of character progression (similar to Super Auto Pets); a separate currency for rerolls; and a "golden seal" mechanic that returned played cards to the hand after skipping blinds.

The number of Jokers (150) in the final game stemmed from a miscommunication with publisher Playstack. Thunk initially planned for 120, but a later discussion led to a change to 150, a number they felt was superior.

Finally, the origin of the name "Local Thunk" is revealed as a programming joke stemming from a conversation with their partner learning R programming. The combination of Lua's "local" keyword and their partner's whimsical variable naming choice, "thunk," led to the memorable developer handle.

Local Thunk's blog post offers a much more comprehensive account of Balatro's development. IGN, impressed by the final product, 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."