Balatro’s release last year had the game become an overnight success and one of the defining games of 2024, overshadowing even the biggest AAA releases. But the game’s creator, Localthunk, revealed that they had all but given up on the game mere months into its development.
Localthunk recently released the Balatro development diary; it covers the game’s development in-depth from late 2021 until it was released last February. The diary mentions a ton of interesting facts about the game (like how it stole from Slay the Spire, despite the developer not wanting any inspiration from the deckbuilder genre). However, one entry mere months into development in March 2022 an entry reveals that the game almost didn’t come to be. "Early March marked an important event in the history of Balatro, and I wanted to describe why things happened the way they did. I stopped working on the project entirely."
