Author: Oatmeal
The first Zhihu, https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/688516525
Preface
Balatro, the joker, should have become a favorite of many indie game lovers lately, and has been immersed in it for 115 hours as of today. For a game practitioner like me who suffers from electronic impotence, it is really not easy to find a game that treats, so I recently took the time to talk about the design of this game.
Game Description:
Balatro is a card building game that blends roguelike, unlike traditional card games, this game itself has no combat, you only need to play combinations according to the rules in the system to give you cards (similar to fighting the landlord's straight, even pairs, three with two, etc.), different combinations have different scores, and the cumulative score exceeds the level goal. Isn't it simple?
"Play mechanics, don't play levels"
This is a very classic phrase in the indie game world, and it is also a core trend of many solo games in recent years: the design emphasizes mechanics rather than leveling to advance the game experience. Roguelike games are a genre representation of this design philosophy. By introducing random elements and changing game environments, endless gameplay possibilities are created. From the endless dungeon exploration of Isaac's Bondage, to the ever-evolving challenges of Dead Cells, to Tetris' simple and esoteric block stacking, these games rely heavily on their core mechanics to provide lasting appeal. Titles such as Lucky Landlord, Circulating Heroes, and Vampire Survivor are also examples of the rich and ongoing player experience that mechanically-driven games can provide, and that beating a level is often not the end of the game, but the beginning of a new challenge.
The joker card adopts the draw and fold rules of Texas Hold'em as its core gameplay, which is similar to a variety of card games familiar to domestic players, such as flush, three-of-a-kind, four-of-a-kind, pair and other card types, which not only lowers the learning threshold of the game, but also enhances its affinity and acceptance. Through this design, the game effectively combines the strategic depth of traditional card games with the unpredictability of rogue elements, the development of the game game, and the choice of genre, etc., all of which make the game have a kaleidoscopic combination.
Vampire Survivor
"Outsiders look at the bustle, insiders look at the doorway"
The joker seems to have very simple rules, using some of the rules of poker, but adding some rogue element rules, but in fact, many of the internal designs of the game are textbook-level. For example, with card building, can you design so many kinds of joker cards and make them chemistry with each other? If you think you can, can you balance the intensity of these joker cards and make them appear in a certain flow experience during the game?
Imagine that the player is the lion dancer, you put the plum blossom pile, and there are 10 plum blossom piles in front of him. You need to calculate the position, height, and distance of the next 10 or even 20 clubs according to the number of clubs it has stepped on. Each lion dancer's height is different, the leg length is different, and the plum blossom pile is different, some are high and some are low, the distance is different, you need to choose the height of the plum blossom pile, the thickness, and at the right time, the right position to put it down for him to step on, put it high or far, the lion dancer can't jump over and fall down, put close and short, maybe he can't step on it, the lion dance effect is very poor.
lion dance
Therefore, it is not enough to create enough plum blossom piles, the most difficult thing is how to place the most appropriate plum blossom piles in the right place, so that the lion dance has the best effect, which is the most test of the designer's skills. Therefore, many people think that the difficulty of rogues is to design enough interesting cards/effects, but in fact, the bottom layer of a really good rogue is the algorithm, so the mechanism itself is not very difficult in roguelike games, but the difficulty is the algorithm, so that the mechanism can play a role at the right time.
For example, "Vampire Survivors", "Slay the Spire" and other rogues that are used as textbooks. Let's put aside the differences in the gameplay of the game and discuss the card building DB. Let's take a look at how the build of a traditional roguelike game is done, as shown below:
This image is actually a neural network diagram of the AI (laughs), because when I was going to make a flow board, I found that this is the image presented, so in a rogue game, the player's build for their own growth is very similar to this, so let me explain it to you.
- The yellow part on the far left can be understood as the class chosen by the player, such as the weapon in Hades, the class in Diablo 3, and the equipment chosen at the beginning in Dead Cells.
- Then the blue part is the equipment, skills, and talents that you will drop along the way, and we also abstract it as "cards", so in the game Joker is Joker.
- However, every time the player pushes the level, every time he chooses, it does not give you unlimited options, the system will draw a portrait for you according to the genre you choose and the growth during the game, so as to adjust the content that will be reproduced next and close. That is, the part on the right side of the blue area in the image above, the options given to you will be deleted and restricted.
- This is the core build design of rogue, the game's "cards" have a combination and match, there are mutual benefits, and there are also mutual exclusions, so when you choose a class A "card", the system may increase the probability of the appearance of subsequent class A "cards", and the probability of the appearance of mutually exclusive cards will be reduced accordingly. If you have a card that doubles Wealth at game distance, the chance of the next card with the Wealth Economic Buff effect will increase.
Hades
- The pink area on the far right is the ultimate goal of the deck, which is equivalent to players building their best game strategy. This can be Diablo 3 where players get the best gear set for their current class, or the best combination of skill talents in hades.
Joker deck
The type of cards in the game
We talked about card building above, but how did the joker card be designed?
The main types of cards in the game are as follows:
Joker card type
The game's in-game and out-of-game build mainly revolves around the clown card, and the clown card is unlocked in a variety of ways, which is equivalent to the game designer directly binding some achievements to the clown card, and after unlocking, it will appear in the store. I have categorized the types of clown cards, which can be classified into 5 types, and different types of combinations have different ways of playing.
So I can see that the designer's brain is very big, and simple poker and gameplay can think of so many creative ideas, I don't know the development time of this game for the time being, but according to some interviews, I know that the author actually likes roguelike games, and can think of so many clown cards, which is enough to prove that the designer is a genius.
The pace of the game
The game is still quite brilliant in terms of rhythm design, and the rhythm speed is still relatively fast. I elegantly went through my game video and concluded:
The game's level is usually around 45 seconds (if you play at double speed, the single round may be shorter for experienced players.) about 30 seconds). If you count the time it takes to buy cards and packs in the store and make decisions, an average of 25 seconds, then the average time for a player is 3-4 minutes per round, and when you count the time for strategic thinking, it is an average of 5 minutes per turn. Many players may find it incredible, so the game is not stealing your time at all, but constantly "reopening".
The pace of the game quickly decreases and the negative feedback that comes with reopening. This actually makes use of the psychological aspects of instant gratification and attention maintenance:
- Instant gratification: Humans are inherently inclined to get quick gratification and are reluctant to get positive feedback after a long period of work.
- Attention Maintenance: People have a limited attention span. The short duration of a single round allows players to complete the game before they get tired or lose interest, which inspires anticipation for the next round.
These two points are also completely in line with the setting of nipple music in the short video era.
The ultimate use of the gambler's psychology
I've seen a lot of people complain on the Internet that this game is very random, and the construction of cards is not particularly good, it's too face-looking, and the store can't brush the clown you want, so the winning side is very small. I've even seen some game insiders analyze what its build doesn't do well compared to other DBG+rogue cards. In fact, the clown card amplifies the proportion of randomness in this regard, and I think it happens to be the most cleverly designed part of this game, which can be called a stroke of genius. That is to exploit the gambler psychology of the player.
Gambler's mentality: I think I can win, I can win back if I lose, I can win bigger if I win!
The joker card can be said to take the gambler's psychology to the extreme:
Sunk costs
Maybe this one is out of play, but seeing that I've gone so many rounds, I just keep playing, what if I can win? What if I have a good clown?
Loss aversion
Players are twice as averse to loss as they are at the joy of getting the same gain. Did you play on your own with a Grand Slam and a full score, but you forgot that you didn't even beat the second leg in the last game?
Balatro's design subtly amplifies these psychological traits. The game's blind-skipping setting, the quick-restart mechanic (without even confirmation), and the abundance of luck-based card pack options (e.g., planets, spells, joker packs) in the store are all motivating gamblers to keep trying and hoping for the next good luck. This design not only adds to the appeal of the game, but also greatly increases its replay value.
Planet Card Pack
Skip the blinds
Blind skipping is a major feature of the game, if the player chooses to skip the blinds, they will lose the battle reward and a chance to grow in a store transaction, which is actually essentially a gambler's psychology, skipping the blinds may get some buffs, but the buff effect is often ambiguous, such as the laser effect in the picture below, because you don't know if the card with the laser effect will be the card you want, and when your joker card combination is not going well, missing out on gold and a chance to grow can often get yourself into trouble。 Bad luck with consecutive skipping rewards in the early and middle stages often means reopening, but reopening is a normal thing for rogue, especially with such fast-paced cards.
The game was never designed to guarantee that the player would win every game. As a game designer, I believe that from the moment a player clicks to start a game, the win rate and factors such as the variety of cards and the number of foils are preset (the presence of the seed code verifies this conjecture). This also explains why the game chose poker as its theme, and why some countries may choose to remove the game from the shelves — it touches on some sensitive areas of game design, and the gambling-related elements make the game have a certain "original sin".
Top art performance
In addition to the innovation of the game mechanics, Balatro's art performance is also top-notch. When it comes to artistic excellence, it's not just because of the card's exquisite design or appealing art style, but because it's unique in the pixel dimension. This performance is mainly reflected in two aspects:
- Card Design: The card designs in Balatro are incredibly creative, and from credit cards to transit cards, each joker card is not only part of the game mechanics, but also a showcase of visual art. These designs cleverly combine modern elements with the aesthetics of traditional card games, adding to the game's visual interest and topicality.
- Dynamic background: Generally speaking, the background of card games should not steal the scene as much as possible, so that the player's vision can focus on the card itself, but the dynamic flow of the background of the clown card will bring you an immersive experience, the background is like an endless black hole, not only swallowing the player's sight, but also invisibly lengthening the player's game time. What's even more interesting is that the background changes shape according to different blinds, syncing with the progress of the game, enhancing the sense of dynamics and urgency of the game.
- Game music: Another thing you may not have noticed is the background music of the game, it has not stopped from the moment you enter the game, whether it is the main interface or entering the level, or even the end of the game (the playback speed slows down), the BGM song is the same from beginning to end. This is deliberately done by the designer, imagining that you enter a casino, the surrounding environment inside the casino, the communication of personnel, the sound of various machines, this environment BGM rings from the moment you enter the casino, he will not cut the song because you go to play slot machines or poker, he is ringing in your ears from beginning to end. This non-interrupting design is also essentially an accomplice that keeps you immersed and even stopping.
- UI/UE animations: Then there are the animations of the game, the card animations of the game, the click effects of UI buttons, the special effects of fonts, etc., all of which show a very high level of design, and can be taken out separately to write an independent game UI design teaching example. For example, the amplitude and frequency of the font rhythm, the speed at which the buttons appear, the time difference between the jitter effect, the twisting effect of the cards when the cards are dealt, and the speed of the movement trajectory of the cards all need to be finely tuned to ensure perfect harmony with the rest of the game. If you've ever looked at itween animation, linear animation, you'll know that making a very comfortable animation requires a lot of tuning, and I can't fault the art of the clown card yet.
Final thoughts
In addition to the regular European and American board games such as Texas Hold'em, Joker also references the Big Two card gameplay in Guangdong, China, and the game developers were inspired by Lucky Landlord, a roguelike game full of random elements and slot mechanics. The combination of these elements gives Joker a unique sense of strategy and card-building fun.
Later, I also learned that the author of the clown card was not born in a big factory, and it is said that before the birth of the clown card, he did a lot of game demos, but none of them were released. The roguelike element of the game was only known to the game when it was halfway through development. Like some other successful indie games, he decided to quit his job halfway through his part-time job to make a full-time game, which actually made me think about whether the game itself needs a seasoned designer, or does it just need you to keep it fun and know what kind of experience is fun? A good game should be fun itself, it doesn't care how gorgeous the graphics you have, it doesn't care how complex your system is, but it is fun.
Having the ability to recognize what kind of game is really interesting, and being willing to give up a stable career to do so, and invest two years into building a game, is an admirable feat in itself. For any game developer, this decision to dedicate himself to the creative process is undoubtedly the greatest proof of his belief and a sincere contribution to the art of games.
Finally, I borrowed a sentence from G Fat to end:
“Game design is not about creating art, it's about creating fun.” ——Gabe Newell
References for this article:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2379780?snr=5000_5100___primarylinks