Balatro seemingly came out of nowhere and instantly became everyone's most-played game on Steam this year, and it turns out creator LocalThunk started it as a quick project to do during some time off work.
Balatro won the Critics' Choice Breakthrough Award at the Golden Joystick Awards yesterday, which is given to the game that surprised the most. It also picked up a well-deserved win for Best Indie Game. Balatro's roguelike take on poker certainly was unexpected, and although it took me a while to unlearn real poker so I could fully enjoy it, I've now spent an embarrassing amount of hours with it. Our games editor, Oscar, swears he has never played it during a work meeting, but I smell lies.
