Balatro Creator Played Slay the Spire Only During Dev

Balatro creator Local Thunk has published a revealing development retrospective on his personal blog, confessing he deliberately avoided playing roguelike games during production - with one notable exception.

The Curious Case of the Roguelike Abstinence

In his detailed development timeline, the pseudonymous developer explained his December 2021 decision to stop playing roguelikes entirely during Balatro's creation.

"Let me be perfectly clear - this wasn't some design purity stance," Local Thunk wrote. "Game development is my passion project, not a money-making endeavor. I deliberately wanted to explore roguelike and deckbuilding mechanics with fresh eyes - to make mistakes, reinvent systems, and avoid established formulas. Would studying existing games have created a more polished product? Absolutely. But that would have defeated the creative joy I find in the process."

The One Exception That Proved the Rule

Eighteen months later, Local Thunk finally broke his rule - downloading Slay the Spire for research purposes. "Holy shit," he wrote. "Now THAT is a game."

The developer explained his reasoning: "I initially downloaded it to study controller implementation for card games. Then I got completely hooked. Ironically, my delayed exposure probably saved Balatro from becoming a subconscious clone of their brilliant design."

Development Nuggets and Discarded Ideas

The postmortem reveals several fascinating behind-the-scenes details:

• The project folder remained stubbornly named "CardGame" throughout development
• The working title "Joker Poker" persisted until late stages
• Scrapped features included a Super Auto Pets-style upgrade system and special golden seals for perfect runs

The now-iconic 150 Jokers count emerged from a publisher mix-up: "I told Playstack we'd have 120 Jokers. Next meeting they referenced 150. Rather than correct them, I thought 'Actually... that's better' and added 30 more."

The Origin of "Local Thunk"

The developer alias stems from a programming in-joke: "My partner learning R asked about variable naming conventions. After my detailed explanation, she deadpanned 'I just call mine thunk.' The Lua programming language uses 'local' for variables - hence 'local thunk' was born."

The full development diary offers even more insights into Balatro's creation. IGN awarded the game 9/10, praising its "endlessly satisfying deck-building that threatens to derail entire weekends with its compulsive 'one more run' allure."