A balatro was a professional jester in ancient Rome. TIL
Released at the end of February, it's a solitaire poker game against the house. Start with a normal 52 card deck and play the best hands you can. Customize your deck by buying new cards, manipulating them with Tarot cards, upgrade the hands you play with planet cards, and the main attraction: The 150 different Jokers
Jokers do all sorts of crazy things, and enable an almost unlimited amount of strategies to build around. Each hand score is made up of 3 parts:
- Chips (base score based on the hand type, card value is added e.g., King is 10 chips, 2 is 2 chips)
- +Mult (base multiplier)
- xMult (multiplier multiplier)
There are also some secret poker hands you can unlock if you're lucky, like a Flush House - a suited full house.
(As is, the straight will be worth more points that the flush)
Just a great, high quality, game with an awesome retro feel, CRT monitor effect, and "haunted video poker" vibe as I've heard it described.