Finding a game that is both a time killer, fun, and can be played anywhere sounds like quite the feat. Funnily enough, I have discovered a game that fits that bill: Balatro.

Balatro is not a well-kept secret. It has been nominated for a variety of awards and has won three awards in it’s one-year long lifespan.

Awards won:

BAFTA (British Academy Film Awards) 2025:
– Best Debut Game

The Game Awards 2024:
– Best Debut Indie Game
– Best Mobile Game
– Best Independent Game

The game achieved over five million downloads. It is available on Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox. Balatro is also available on mobile.

Okay, so what is Balatro about?

As the Steam description states, “Balatro is a poker-inspired roguelike deck builder all about creating powerful synergies and winning big.”

The player’s goal: beat the blind. How do you achieve this? Through a wide range of choices:

• Mold the 52 card playing deck.
• Find and use consumables: planet and tarot cards.
  • Planet: Raise the level of specific hands (ex. two pair), potentially making them better than a royal flush.
  • Tarot: Edit your playing cards, morphing them into what you need.
• The most important factor to win: jokers.
  • Each joker does something unique: increasing chips, multiplier, and cash – just to name a few.
  • Jokers will make or break your game, so buy and sell wisely.
  • You can only hold five at a time, starting off, so be smart.

As the description states, Balatro is a rougelike deck builder, so every game will be different. You may not see the same jokers as the last game. You may have to change your playing style. You could get an amazing game seed (string of numbers/letters that determines what the game’s run will be) and see numbers you have never seen before.

Reviews are booming

“No wonder why this was nominated for GOTY. This is genuinely, the most ADDICTING GAME I’ve ever played in my life. It might be just big numbers the game. but GOD is it satisfying. For proof on how addicting this game is, I bought this game at the beginning of this year, and I’ve been playing it DAILY. Even if I’m sick, away from home, I still play Balatro, watch Balatro, think about Balatro. This game has taken over my life, and it should do it with yours,” Andery said.

“I went into this game knowing nothing about poker and came out of it becoming addicted to Balatro. You don’t need to know much about poker to do well in this game, as the game is pretty simple when you first start out until you unlock more jokers and find new builds to run. I can spend hours on this game without even realizing how much time has gone by. Definitely recommend!” Cloud said.

These are just two of the 118,000 reviews on steam.