How Balatro Was Made and Why The Creator Expected to Sell Only 6 Copies

How Balatro Was Made and Why The Creator Expected to Sell 6 Copies

This Balatro documentary details the development of roguelike deck-building indie game Balatro and goes behind the scenes of its creation. Discover how the anonymous solo developer LocalThunk originally wanted to make an online version of the card game Big Two. After getting obsessed with watching YouTube videos of people playing the roguelike slot machine game Luck Be a Landlord, LocalThunk pivoted his project to a single player roguelike deck-building experience. The documentary also explores all the design decisions that LocalThunk made and shows how the game evolved into a trippy Poker card game.

It also takes a close look at all the hurdles LocalThunk had to go through. Before Balatro’s main gameplay focus was all about the Joker cards, players were meant to level up their basic cards, much like auto-battler games like Super Auto Pets. After two months of development, LocalThunk realized it just wasn’t fun to play. Additionally, the developer never expected the game to become popular so when it received a lot of attention during development, he was overwhelmed by it. He said it by far the biggest challenge in the entire development cycle. Lastly, the documentary looks towards the future and shows how LocalThunk is far from done with Balatro, as well as what he plans on doing after he’s ultimately done with Balatro.