# LocalThunk  ## Metadata - Author: [[LocalThunk]] - Full Title: LocalThunk - Category: #articles - Summary: insert summary - My notes: - Summary: The author worked on a game called Balatro, originally inspired by a card game they created with friends. After making changes and gathering feedback during a beta phase, the game gained popularity and reached over 114,000 wishlists on Steam before its launch. The author felt overwhelmed but excited as they prepared for the game's release in February 2024. - URL: https://localthunk.com/blog/balatro-timeline-3aarh ## LLM Chats ## NotebookLM ## LLM Audio ## Highlights > I also made a very conscious effort not to play any more roguelike games starting now. 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. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jnvsbdpsh5njrtma1erace18)) - Tags: [[creativity]] > The last few months I have been very involved in the Balatro Discord server. I try and chat with players all the time, and I try to take their criticisms seriously. I feel like the demo and beta players knew more about how to play the game properly than I did, so I found it was really important to listen to what they had to say about the game in order to properly assess what I need to change or tweak for balance. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jnvtdz9a2eb87wjk5cnjqrqz)) - Tags: [[creativity]] - Note: games are an interesting form of art in this respect. it seems intutively different to focus groups, and actually more similar to ai. throwing a thing at people and saying 'what can you do with it?' > I start properly playing the game myself about a week before launch - and it’s actually *fun*. I have a pretty emotional moment where I feel like I did the thing I set out to do. Finally. I made the fun game I wanted to make. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jnvtrx04j2ev6tdmvq26cybg)) > More ratings pour in, and by the time the day is done we are sitting above 90 on both Metacritic and OpenCritic. I wasn’t even thinking that this was a possibility, but it sure did build a ton of hype for launch day. I don’t think I would have rated Balatro higher than an 8 and I made the damn thing. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jnvttb59cqm1xgmfbbfmh4gw)) > One of the moments that sticks out to me is the moment I first checked the Steam page for sales. I checked this page for the first time a couple hours after launch almost on a whim, not expecting to see any sales information yet, and we had already sold 50,000 copies on Steam. The numbers on that page made no sense. This was meant for just a few of my friends and yet somehow all these strangers chose to buy it. The revenue on that page after just a couple hours was over $600,000, far more money than I’ve made in my entire life. By the end of launch day, Balatro has sold 119,000 units on Steam alone. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01jnvtwhyk98k4n1qqa4nkbkzq))