Balatro was PC Gamer's 2024 Game of the Year for many good reasons, but one of them was that no-one on the team could stop playing this thing. We weren't alone either: developers went gaga for the poker roguelike. And now it turns out that even Balatro creator LocalThunk just can't stop banging his head against the wall he created.
LocalThunk is pretty good at his own game: last year he spoke about beating Balatro with every deck on every difficulty. He also played a few rounds at GDC, anonymously, wowing bystanders with his savant-like knowledge of the tips and tricks. But even with such achievements under his belt, LocalThunk still wants to "100%" the game, and has run up against the challenge to end all challenges. Erm… which he created.
LocalThunk is currently trying to score Balatro's toughest achievement, which is for a completionist++ run. A completionist++ run is extraordinarily difficult and, while better Balatro players than I may disagree, leaves an absolutely enormous amount up to RNGesus and what Jokers pop up when.
To get the completionist++ achievement, you have to "earn a gold sticker on every Joker." To get a gold sticker, a Joker has to be on your team after beating the Ante 8 boss on a gold stake run (the game's hardest difficulty). Problem is that not all of the game's 150 Jokers are great, while some are downright useless, and the gold stakes rules are brutal: small blinds give no reward money, required scores get higher faster, fewer discards, and Jokers that can last forever, or degrade, or that you have to pay to keep.
Not for me, thanks, though I bet PC Gamer EIC Phil Savage has had a good go at it. LocalThunk has been trying his best, and posted the "are ya winning son?" meme with an embedded "game over" screen from Balatro, showing him losing to The Wall (one of the game's most brutally difficult bosses).
"But for real I'm at 146/150 for completionist++ and getting a taste of my own medicine," added LocalThunk (thanks, GR+). A user called Mark had the appropriate response: "Well well well if it isn’t the consequences of my actions."
LocalThunk has managed the completionist+ achievement, which is hard enough (beat gold stakes with every deck). But I for one am glad that a game that has kicked my ass many times is also doing it to its own creator.
Balatro will at some point be receiving a 1.1 update that will be adding some new Jokers to the game, among other things, but even the publisher doesn't know when that's happening: "He's just gonna show up one day and say, 'Here's 100 Jokers.'"
