If you pay any attention to the gaming industry, you have very likely heard of Balatro. The indie hit was the Vampire Survivors of 2024, and now it has reached a new sales milestone of five million units. This also shows the impact of The Game Awards, as Balatro was prominently featured during the show, taking home three awards—Best Independent Game, Best Debut Indie Game, and Best Mobile Game. The game reached two million copies sold in August, and since then, it has released on mobile devices as well as Apple Arcade.
Originally launched in February, Balatro is now available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, Android, iOS, and PC. It comes from a solo developer, LocalThunk, who has been encouraging people to experience more indie games. In fact, Balatro has had numerous Friends of Jimbo collaborations with various other indie games, including Among Us, Vampire Survivors, Shovel Knight, Cult of the Lamb, 1000xRESIST, and more. If you have somehow never heard of the game, it is a roguelike deck-building game focused on creating Poker hands. It’s an excellent game that shows the importance of proper game design.
