It’s awards season in the world of video gaming, and the nominees for most of the Game of the Year Awards going around showcase a stacked race. Black Myth: Wukong, China’s first triple-A outing, won over a huge fan base with its Souls-like gameplay, which helped it to conquer the 100 per cent fan-voted Golden Joystick Awards.

 

Around it, there’s the much-loved Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the superb Astro Bot, the remake of Silent Hill 2, and indie sensations Animal Well and Balatro were all in the running for the GJY top prize. Of them all, few have become quite the cultural sensation as Balatro.

 

Drawing from a game that’s stood the test of time, Balatro is as clear-cut in its play as it is compelling. With the next major awards ceremony being The Game Awards on 12 December, many wonder if Black Myth: Wukong already has it in the bag, but the way the voting works might just bring the title to the little indie card game.

 

A Perfect Example of Compelling, Simple Gameplay

 

 

Balatro has its foundations embedded in poker. The card game has stood the test of time for a reason: it’s easy to grasp, competitive, and tricky to master. From its humble origins to becoming one of the most popular Canada live casino offerings, people from all over the world play and watch poker because it’s so simple yet compelling.

 

Still, for Balatro to become such a hit, it had to build on poker’s foundations and transform it even further into a kind of video game. In live casino games, the game is pivoted to be a single-player outing against the house, so there was certainly a precedent for poker being versatile enough to achieve this.

 

For developer LocalThunk, this came by incorporating a roguelike game loop. You seek to get the highest-scoring poker hands to score high enough, spend the winnings on enhancements in the form of Jokers, and keep going until you win the deck or lose and start over again. This compelling simplicity has won over millions of players.

 

Critics and Media Love Balatro

It’s difficult to think of a successful game this year that’s received less praise in the mainstream media than Balatro, especially as we’re seeing new headlines arise in November for a game launched in February. Most recently, the headline was that Balatro on mobile had done the near-impossible and usurped Minecraft at the top.

 

At The Game Awards, there’s a weighted voting system. Only ten per cent of it comes down to fan voting via social media platforms. The other 90 per cent is drawn from the votes submitted by over 100 publications from around the world.

 

The easy cop-out for most outlets would be to assume that Balatro would win the indie award and give the nod to a triple-A title. After all, there are plenty to choose from that spent a lot more time and money to create far larger, more expansive worlds and stories. Yet, none of them got the coverage that Balatro has earned.

 

Some see the Golden Joystick Awards as a precursor, of sorts, for The Game Awards, but with the vote switching from the general public to being mostly decided by professional critics, Balatro is certainly still in with a shot at the big prize.