Now that Balatro is available for mobile devices, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. And while it's a great game, its tutorial doesn't do the best job of setting you up for the kind of success needed to get you hooked. In my first few hours, although I was completing the set goals, I felt like I was stumbling my way to success rather than achieving it through strategy. The addition was a bit abrupt and focused on the basics of how to play rather than combining that with tips on how to play. effectively. With this in mind, here you will find useful information and tips on how to get started.
They told me there would be no math.
In BalatroThe main loop of the game is to accumulate enough poker chips to exceed a set chip total called the blind. To do that, you must create the ideal poker hand that maximizes the number of chips you can win. I think what was so difficult for me initially was understanding how punctuation worked. The numbers were flying at me and I didn't know what they meant or where they came from. Knowing how punctuation works is critical to maximize your chip earning potential.
Each hand you play is assigned a simple mathematical equation:
Total chips earned = card chip value x multiplier score.
The mathematical equation is different for each type of poker hand and the more powerful a hand is, the larger the equation will be. There is no need to remember hand hierarchies or the values of their equations; Simply pressing the “Run Info” button will bring up a list of references. Now, here's the important part: this mathematical equation changes depending on the cards you play and the modifiers you've obtained. For example, the base equation for two pairs is 20 chips x 2 score multiplier. If I play two queens and two 3s, I can calculate my score by adding the total chip value of my cards (10+10+3+3=26) to the chip value of equation (20) and then multiplying that number by 2. , which is equivalent to 92 tokens.
I'm reluctant to admit how long it took me to understand what was going on, but once I figured it out, everything fell into place. I finally got what made this game hard to put down. Some of these blinds require accumulating thousands of chips, so the main point (and honestly the biggest fun factor) of Balatro is to reinforce those equations and your cards as much as possible. Which brings me to my next tip.
Cash rules everything around me
I wish the game took more time to explain that, from the beginning, money is all. For each blind, you have several opportunities or hands to win enough chips, and if you don't like the cards in your hand, you have several opportunities to discard cards in the hope of getting better ones. You win the most money by beating the blinds in the fewest hands and with the fewest discards possible. There are also other ways to earn money with special cards and benefits you can get. Once you unlock it, use the special deck which will give you an extra $10 instead of the normal $4. Look for the benefit (called a “tag”) that gives you $25 for beating the “boss blinds,” or more difficult blinds that introduce some kind of negative effect like lowering the values of the equation while also requiring you to win abnormal amounts high tokens. Deposit as much as you can, as soon as you can to…
shop until you drop
The surprising thing about Balatro is that it has managed to effectively reproduce the excitement of opening loot boxes without having to spend a single penny on microtransactions. At the end of each blind, you can visit the store where you purchase cards that add to or modify your deck, vouchers that provide powerful benefits like the ability to increase your hand size, or wild cards that have all kinds of score-changing abilities. . Choose wild cards that increase bonuses each round based on meeting certain criteria so your scoring potential can grow exponentially. My most successful run included a wild card that added a +1 to my multiplier every time I didn't play a figure. By the end of that streak, he had made over 10,000 chips from the weakest hands played with the cheapest cards. If you see wildcards that don't work with your strategy, don't forget that you can spend money to renew the store and get new ones.
Unlike most other roguelikes that allow you to keep some skills or items when you die, when you fail a run in Balatroall your special cards, vouchers, benefits and cash disappear. You can't carry cash, so spend it.
Lastly, if you want to make sure you have a good time with Balatro…
Install an app blocker (seriously)
run in Balatro They're short and fluid, making it trivial to get into the rhythm even after having to start over after a failed attempt. And if you're an adult with responsibilities, that's going to be a problem, especially on mobile. Three hours in real time seem like only 20 minutes, which makes Balatro The closest humans have come to legitimate time travel. After finishing my first day with the game around 5am without feeling tired in the slightest, I added it to my app blocker and set it to cut off access every day at midnight. Those jokes about Balatro being a productivity problem They're not that far from reality, so if you want to try to get some sleep or work, put up railings so you can do it.
