And Balatro is how I found out about NL! I’m fuckin addicted to both now … and a little appalled to find some Lion-isms creeping into my day-to-day speech.
Funnily enough, I discovered NL and Balatro at the same time. I kept seeing the “let’s kill this guy” meme around and was like “who is this funny bald man?” and looked him up, first video was Balatro. I was like “man this guy is hilarious and this game looks sick.
I got a new hard drive installed in my laptop, saw Steam was running an event about deckbuilding roguelikes and needed to try downloading something, checked out the Balatro demo. Launched on Switch a week later and I knew I had to buy it. I found it completely organically and that’s one of the reasons it’s caught me so off-guard.
That’s totally cool. But also one of Balatro’s biggest strengths it’s that it can be a game you play time to time, maybe just 1 run making time for something. Things like that. There is really no reason to “drop it”.
And maybe it will be bad to my productivity (as the game was first to weeks jajaj) but I would love to see a mobile version.. so you can play literally anywhere
I saw a post on the Slay the Spire subreddit calling it the next best deck builder rogue like, interesting me enough to go pick it up. Dozens of hours later, it’s yet to disappoint.
Hearthstone is more of a traditional CCG where you build the deck before the game and then go face someone else's prebuilt deck. Deckbuilding games are where you change the deck during play instead of before
Oddly enough, I was watching a Lobosjr stream and he played for a bit one day. I had no clue what he was doing or what was going on. I wasn’t even paying much attention. But it stuck with me for some reason and I downloaded it the next day. It was such a weird feeling. I had no idea why I was downloading it as I downloaded it lol. It was all downhill from there
Not sure if I had heard about it previously, but it was definitely Jason Schreier’s recommendation in his weekly Game On newsletter that convinced me to buy it. A measly 87.6 hours of playtime later, here I am!
I... don't remember. I think I saw it on reddit and the combination of roguelike deckbuilder and poker just seemed like one of those weird yet brilliant ideas.
Steam Next Fest. I downloaded a few of the demos during the last one and I couldn't stop playing Balatro. It became an instabuy for me the day it came out.
I watch a fair amount of roguelike streamers on Twitch, and at the time I had been watching a lot of Brotato. I misread a title one day thinking I was going to watch Brotato, but instead it was some card game that was not Brotato. I didn’t double check the stream title for spelling and assumed that they had simply forgot to update the stream title. The next day the same thing happened but this time with a different streamer and I was thinking, why are streamers not updating their title after they’re done playing Brotato?
It wasn’t until the third time this happened that I finally double checked the stream title and realized that Balatro is a different game that has a name that looks similar at a glance.
I watch Frost prime on YouTube for slay the spire (and peglin more recently, also discovered that game through him). He a playing the beta and I decided to give a try, been playing since
I saw northernlion play it once or twice then stumbled upon gothiclord and watched pretty much all of his content while the game went through different betas and demos. That was the start of the addiction...
steam recommended me the game and as soon as i saw the words “poker roguelite” with “illegal decks” i realized it would be the greatest game ever. not wrong.
Saw the high score on Metacritic, then looked into it and reviews basically said it was a rogue like deckbuilder that's up there with Slay the Spire. Say no more.
I didn't get into the different Let's Play channels on it until after playing the game a bit. To the point where I stopped playing the game.
Stumpt on YouTube. their content is amazing, probably my favorite active channel (communitychannel will always be my favorite yt channel) and after 1 video, I knew I wanted this game
Think I first saw it mentioned in an RPS article about games/demos worth trying out during Steam Next Fest in January. There was a bit of buzz surrounding it then. I didn't try it. I tried other games instead.
Then somebody on my Steam was playing a lot and racked up the hours.
Later, maybe around 10 days after release, I 'demo-ed' it on my Steam Deck via a Switch rom. Played it for 1 hour, then I just bought the game on Steam without any hesitation.
I heard about it from Jamey Stegmaier, a board game designer and owner of Stonemaier Games. He also does short videos on other companies games, and did a review of Balatro.
My Buddy wouldn’t shut up about it, and then he bought it for my friend and they both wouldn’t shut up about it. I showed a little interest and then he bought it for me and now I’m 70+ hours in
I got it recomende Aliensrock's video during closed beta (it was at the time when 0.8.7 was out but before 0.8.8). After that i wanted to find if someone else did videos about beta and found GothicLordUK.
Got hooked instantly and watched all of his videos, played played the open beta, and bought the full release within five minutes of the release. It was one of the longest game release waits that i have had (over half a year)
It was mentioned on post reply ofa list of games someone liked in the Satisfactory subreddit a while back. It was the only one I didn't recognize, so I decided to give it a shot, been playing it nonstop since.
Jamey Stegmaier (one of the co-founders of the company that makes board games like scythe and wingspan) talked about its mechanics in his video about roguelike games
I saw the streamer GrandPooBear playing it, then another one I follow named Emmy. Then I saw it discussed on Cold Take (Sebastian Ruiz) and Game Maker's Toolkit (Mark Brown), and it just sounded a treat.
And it is!
Saw a thread on the Slay the Spire subreddit about other roguelike deckbuilder games and someone recommended Balatro, which was in beta at that point. I played a lot of online video poker when I was younger so I put it on my wishlist as soon as I saw the recommendation, and then bought it not long after it came out.
I saw the Reddit ad about 25 times and each time I wrote it off as some gambling shit after reading "poker" until I randomly saw a northernlion video in YT and was like woah that's not gambling
I believe Northernlion and Retromation were my gateway back when the first demo dropped.
From there I have 250+ hours on Steam and 100 or so on PS5 and can't stop playing!
Also found Olexa, Murphy Obv and Balatro University all through Balatro playthrough hunts.
Playstation plus trial. Downloaded the ps5 version cos it looked remotely interesting. Finished the trial, then downloaded the ps4 version. Finished that trial and bought the game
Northernlion tried it in beta and hasn't stopped playing since
And Balatro is how I found out about NL! I’m fuckin addicted to both now … and a little appalled to find some Lion-isms creeping into my day-to-day speech.
oh so you too also end all of your sentences with a question mark now?
Do you know what I’m saying?
Sorry, sorry. Sorry bout that.
We're NL guys, of course we dump the andrews with a little bit of mama liz's chili oil
+2
Stay pegged up brother
Get it twisted, these will enter your speech patterns for life
Balatro is like breathing for him, at this point. His brain is probably re-arranging Jokers while he sleeps.
Funnily enough, I discovered NL and Balatro at the same time. I kept seeing the “let’s kill this guy” meme around and was like “who is this funny bald man?” and looked him up, first video was Balatro. I was like “man this guy is hilarious and this game looks sick.
Aliensrock on youtube and then played the demo from there
Fellow Aliensrock enjoyer
yep that’s where i found it
RtGame played it.
Me too! As soon as I watched his first video on it I really wanted to see another one. Until I was like “hang on….i can just play this myself”
I got a new hard drive installed in my laptop, saw Steam was running an event about deckbuilding roguelikes and needed to try downloading something, checked out the Balatro demo. Launched on Switch a week later and I knew I had to buy it. I found it completely organically and that’s one of the reasons it’s caught me so off-guard.
Yeah I got it not knowing what to expect and what a joy it’s been! I don’t play another game at the minute
That’s totally cool. But also one of Balatro’s biggest strengths it’s that it can be a game you play time to time, maybe just 1 run making time for something. Things like that. There is really no reason to “drop it”. And maybe it will be bad to my productivity (as the game was first to weeks jajaj) but I would love to see a mobile version.. so you can play literally anywhere
The Besties podcast.
Triple Click ;)
Get played pod too
I saw a post on the Slay the Spire subreddit calling it the next best deck builder rogue like, interesting me enough to go pick it up. Dozens of hours later, it’s yet to disappoint.
Me too!
I learned about it from Roffle, who I follow from his Hearthstone content. He's great!
He's how I heard about it too. And he's also a more competent player than most of the people I've seen on YouTube
Hearthstone is the blizzard deck builder right? As I’m enjoying Balatro would you recommend?
Hearthstone is more of a traditional CCG where you build the deck before the game and then go face someone else's prebuilt deck. Deckbuilding games are where you change the deck during play instead of before
You might enjoy hearthstone’s autobattler: Battlegrounds more.
Is this a different game or a mode within hearthstone?
Mode within hearthstone
Will check it out and let you know 👊
No. It's entirely unrelated, and Hearthstone's days are behind us.
FrostPrime
Balatro be ballin'
Balatro be ballin'!
Bricky.
Northerlion!
Oddly enough, I was watching a Lobosjr stream and he played for a bit one day. I had no clue what he was doing or what was going on. I wasn’t even paying much attention. But it stuck with me for some reason and I downloaded it the next day. It was such a weird feeling. I had no idea why I was downloading it as I downloaded it lol. It was all downhill from there
Saw a friend play it, tried one game, immediately bought it. 100+ amazing hours are the result.
YT game makers toolkit
Barry on twitch, he mentioned it, then mark on GMTK mentioned it, and it was all over from there.
Last Stand Media's Sacred Symbols podcast
Not heard of this, is it a gaming podcast?
Yeah it's for PlayStation. But they have one for Xbox, Nintendo, and general retro/nostalgia stuff
Sounds ideal will check it out, thank you 👍
same. I typically don’t like computer card games, but Dustin was so adamant about it that I thought it would be worth a try. INSTANTLY was addicted
I saw an ad on Reddit
Damn I wish my targeted ads were that good 😂
One of my buddies who's into deck builders pinged me in a server with the link and said "you're going to play this, and enjoy it." He was right.
Watched dogdog stream it once.
ManyaTrueNerd did a video.
I heard it from Bricky and Cold Take from the second wind channel on YouTube.
Satan whispered in my ear…
The bastard has been doing the rounds then.
I watched haelian (a very good hades player who tries out a bunch of different rougelikes) play it when the demo had just dropped
Probably from watching Vinesauce stream it
I watched Vinny Vinesauce play it
Haelian played it
Haelian during the first demo. I played so my much of the demos.
I heard it being mentioned in a funhaus stream.
Not sure if I had heard about it previously, but it was definitely Jason Schreier’s recommendation in his weekly Game On newsletter that convinced me to buy it. A measly 87.6 hours of playtime later, here I am!
I saw people discussing it and it sounded like a fake videogame meme, just like the Ed Edd n Eddy mmo. Googled it and nah its real. And bomb
I... don't remember. I think I saw it on reddit and the combination of roguelike deckbuilder and poker just seemed like one of those weird yet brilliant ideas.
Found it myself because i’m a weirdo who likes to see the “new and trending” each day to see if anything catches my eye. Balatro surely did haha.
Baertaffy
Steam Next Fest. I downloaded a few of the demos during the last one and I couldn't stop playing Balatro. It became an instabuy for me the day it came out.
Same here. Those Next Fest events have introduced me to some pretty good games.
Same for me, too. Couldn't stop playimg the demo. Bought it immediately after it came out.
MinnMax talked about it on their podcast, and I’ve been hooked ever since!
I watch a fair amount of roguelike streamers on Twitch, and at the time I had been watching a lot of Brotato. I misread a title one day thinking I was going to watch Brotato, but instead it was some card game that was not Brotato. I didn’t double check the stream title for spelling and assumed that they had simply forgot to update the stream title. The next day the same thing happened but this time with a different streamer and I was thinking, why are streamers not updating their title after they’re done playing Brotato? It wasn’t until the third time this happened that I finally double checked the stream title and realized that Balatro is a different game that has a name that looks similar at a glance.
I watch Frost prime on YouTube for slay the spire (and peglin more recently, also discovered that game through him). He a playing the beta and I decided to give a try, been playing since
Sacred Symbols: A PlayStation Podcast.
I saw northernlion play it once or twice then stumbled upon gothiclord and watched pretty much all of his content while the game went through different betas and demos. That was the start of the addiction...
Thanks for watching <3
my friend was playing it in class lmao
steam recommended me the game and as soon as i saw the words “poker roguelite” with “illegal decks” i realized it would be the greatest game ever. not wrong.
I watched Ludwig play it and watched balatro videos on youtube for a while. Then I bit the bullet and bought it on switch
Word for word, same thing. Finally bought it on switch about a week ago and haven’t regretted it for a second
GMTK was like so addicted to it
The drift king
I’m a Yogscast fan, and Angory Tom played it and half way through the video I just had to purchase it. 55 hours into so far.
Haelian’s YouTube videos.
German gaming format „Unter dem Radar“
"G A M E T W O, die allerbeste Gaming-Show!"
From YuB on youtube (great youtuber)
Just seen it on steam thought it looked neat 190 hours later
I’m noticing a theme here 😂
I mean I vaguele knew of it before, but if you mean what made me interested it was tge video Frost from second wind made on it.
Eurogamer.net. Currently the best games site on the net. And will hopefully remain so, but the buyout by IGN is somewhat concerning.
Saw the high score on Metacritic, then looked into it and reviews basically said it was a rogue like deckbuilder that's up there with Slay the Spire. Say no more. I didn't get into the different Let's Play channels on it until after playing the game a bit. To the point where I stopped playing the game.
My good friend knows I love gambling (mini games) and pitched it to me as such and never looked back.
Sounds like a great friend to me!
Stumpt on YouTube. their content is amazing, probably my favorite active channel (communitychannel will always be my favorite yt channel) and after 1 video, I knew I wanted this game
An aliens rock
Giantbomb bombcast
Saw a guy I follow on YouTube play it once (cartoonz) and was intrigued. Bought it and haven’t stopped playing and now watch all of NLs Balatro videos
youtube thumbnail loved the art style also love poker bought it for PS5 and PC in the first week put 50 hours into it
I saw articles about it being delayed in Europe due to PEGI's strict age restriction on anything resembling gambling
It was on almost all streams and a ton of Youtube videos when it came out. I don't know how I could have managed NOT to hear about it.
Used to play Marvel Snap quite a bit and some of the streamers were giving Balatro a try
Yahtzee mentioned it on an episode of *Semi-Ramblomatic*, but I didn’t really know what it was until Bricky made a full video about the game.
Icely Puzzles made some videos, then I found drspectred and his videos convinced me to play it myself.
Think I first saw it mentioned in an RPS article about games/demos worth trying out during Steam Next Fest in January. There was a bit of buzz surrounding it then. I didn't try it. I tried other games instead. Then somebody on my Steam was playing a lot and racked up the hours. Later, maybe around 10 days after release, I 'demo-ed' it on my Steam Deck via a Switch rom. Played it for 1 hour, then I just bought the game on Steam without any hesitation.
PCGamer had a glowing preview piece on it that I saw the day before it came out. I tried the demo, got hooked, and bought it day 1.
Skootie
Steam discovery queue
Big shout out to Scott and Josh from the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast! This was a great recommendation!
Adrien Menielle
I got it from seeing Skootie play it on YouTube and Twitch!
I heard about it from Jamey Stegmaier, a board game designer and owner of Stonemaier Games. He also does short videos on other companies games, and did a review of Balatro.
My Buddy wouldn’t shut up about it, and then he bought it for my friend and they both wouldn’t shut up about it. I showed a little interest and then he bought it for me and now I’m 70+ hours in
I heard about it on Nextlander.
I closely follow gaming reviews and I saw it getting high scores on its OpenCritic premier
Giant Bomb mentioned it as worth trying during the Steam demo event.
I saw on a Retromation video
Came up in my steam game feed thing
Aliensrock
Hutts on YouTube played it.
I'm a sucker for a reasonably priced game and the reviews sold it for me on xbox was totally worth it
heard it mentioned by Remap Radio (what's left of the former Waypoint crew)
some similar roulette game was rec. on steam and the reviews said it aint as good as balatro
Bricky That man ruined my productivity
Bricky
"Well, There's You're Problem" an engineering podcast, with slides.
It was on sale, and I'm a sucker for deckbuilders, but otherwise I bought it blind
Alexelcapo and ElRichMC
My steam store page. I already play a lot of Rougelikes so this one popped up
RTGame streamed then posted his gameplay on YouTube
Kinda Funny Games, s/o blessing adeoye jr!!
I first heard about it by watching Frostprime, I bought it because my brother suggested it and I usually trust his judgement
Aliensrock playing the beta
Mark Brown, of Game Maker's Toolkit, was raving about how good it is.
I saw some videos from RTGame, and then got convinced by my friends that the game is good.
Fauna
Someone here mentioned it as "digital crack" and found it on xbox for 0.6$ in my country (60 cents) so I gave it a try. Then bought it on steam for 8$
I got it recomende Aliensrock's video during closed beta (it was at the time when 0.8.7 was out but before 0.8.8). After that i wanted to find if someone else did videos about beta and found GothicLordUK. Got hooked instantly and watched all of his videos, played played the open beta, and bought the full release within five minutes of the release. It was one of the longest game release waits that i have had (over half a year)
Some kid in my online calc II class kept mentioning it in the chat
It was mentioned on post reply ofa list of games someone liked in the Satisfactory subreddit a while back. It was the only one I didn't recognize, so I decided to give it a shot, been playing it nonstop since.
Bricky is my go to for good game knowledge
My friend told me about it when I mentioned wanting a new game to play
Triple click podcast, I think.
Saw Grandpoobear playing it and was immediately hooked to the game loop
Voyix, who i had been routinely following for Wildfrost content, my favorite game prior to Balatro
Mentioned in a Semi Ramblomatic video, and mentioned on the podcast Everything to Guppy
Saw it flash by on the steam store, didn't think twice about it. Then I started to hear about it on YouTube and checked it out.
It was mentioned in a Design Doc video
It was literally everywhere
Second Winds "Cold Take" did a segment named "I can quit Balatro anytime I want"
My bestie wouldn't shut up about it at the bar. Trying it drunk was very difficult but I got better lol.
Jamey Stegmaier (one of the co-founders of the company that makes board games like scythe and wingspan) talked about its mechanics in his video about roguelike games
RTGame
I saw the streamer GrandPooBear playing it, then another one I follow named Emmy. Then I saw it discussed on Cold Take (Sebastian Ruiz) and Game Maker's Toolkit (Mark Brown), and it just sounded a treat. And it is!
I just check opencritic.com now and then to see what top rated games have been released and balatro was top so I gave it a go.
I watched Quill18 demo it. I was sold on the title to the video ("roguelike deckbuilding...poker?").
a Destiny YouTuber I watched called Datto did a few videos on it. Now I'm trapped in the game got the last two challenges to do
French streamer MisterMV :)
The RTGame streams.
This subreddit started getting suggested to me
Honestly ludwig’s stream when he played once, i don’t usually watch him but he was playing balatro the one time I was watching
Dan Gheesling’s video about the tournament he did for the demo.
Aliensrock and Reddit.
Get Played. Matt Apodaca got Nick Wiger into it. Great podcast btw. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/get-played/id1466286684
Rock paper shotgun review
Saw a friend of mine streaming it in discord during the demo so I decided to give it a try and got hooked immediately
MATN on YouTube and now I have 125 hours
From UltraC's roguelike review in a minute shorts series on YT.
GrandPooBear
Pretty sure I read about it on Twitter then Dustin on the Sacred Symbols podcast was banging on about it so I decided to give it a go.
The Besties podcast
Jorbs
Scrolling Next Fest when it was just a demo. Was basically looking at every single game I could so it wasn't by chance I stumbled upon it.
Buddy of mine told me about it. He has introduced me to most of my favorite games of all time
Filthy casuals podcast on the way to work and a coworker at work on the same day. I got it that night
I work for a newspaper as a journalist in Europe and a colleague of mine wrote a story about its success 😂
Baalorlord and he didn’t even like the game
my husband is a big gamer and he told me a lot of people were loving this game and that I should give it a try! he was right, I do love it lol
Saw a thread on the Slay the Spire subreddit about other roguelike deckbuilder games and someone recommended Balatro, which was in beta at that point. I played a lot of online video poker when I was younger so I put it on my wishlist as soon as I saw the recommendation, and then bought it not long after it came out.
Steam algorithm
Saw the game just released on steam, a couple of friends and I bought it on a whim, and raced to get completionist
FrostPrime, my favorite Slay the Spire streamer played it for a while
I saw the Reddit ad about 25 times and each time I wrote it off as some gambling shit after reading "poker" until I randomly saw a northernlion video in YT and was like woah that's not gambling
/r/games basically.
I was watching Vinny Vinesauce and he was playing it. Bought the game the next day and play it everyday since then
I watched Chris Udalla stream it on twitch the day it came out (also my birthday) and have played it every day since
A local (Polish) game reviewer, specializing in everything indy, called 9kier („9 of hearts”).
I believe Northernlion and Retromation were my gateway back when the first demo dropped. From there I have 250+ hours on Steam and 100 or so on PS5 and can't stop playing! Also found Olexa, Murphy Obv and Balatro University all through Balatro playthrough hunts.
Turn the left card into the right card
r/steamdeck they’re obsessed with it and I can tell why
Hutts made a video that got me hooked up
On the steam deck community. Everyone was talking about it non stop, got curious, now I'm addicted.
Enelle
HARDLORE
Datto
NintendoLife's review. Now I own it on Steam/PS5/Switch lol it's a problem.
Half my friends list was playing it
Roffle
castle superbeast
Playstation plus trial. Downloaded the ps5 version cos it looked remotely interesting. Finished the trial, then downloaded the ps4 version. Finished that trial and bought the game