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 remained unchanged throughout development. The working title for much of the game's development was "Joker Poker." He also shared details about scrapped features, such as a version where upgrades were only possible through a pseudo-shop system, a separate currency for rerolls, and a 'golden seal' feature for playing cards.

An interesting anecdote revealed how Balatro ended up with 150 Jokers. Local Thunk mentioned a miscommunication with his publisher, Playstack, where he initially discussed having 120 Jokers, but a subsequent meeting led to the number being misheard or misremembered as 150. Deciding that 150 was a better number, he added 30 more Jokers to the game.

The origin of Local Thunk's developer name is also a highlight of the blog. It stems from a programming joke involving his partner's approach to naming variables in R. She humorously suggested using "thunk," which, combined with the Lua programming language's use of the "local" keyword, inspired the name "Local Thunk."

For those interested in the full story behind Balatro, 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."