Balatro is a game that feels like someone should have invented it already.
Much like how Yu-Gi-Oh was invented by the ancient Egyptians, Balatro may well have been excavated from a digsite in Sumer, a game meant to be enjoyed only by a King who could experience the player’s seat while forty-five court alchemists feverishly worked the abaci in order to tell him if taking Ride the Bus would crash another run.
Balatro takes the familiar deck of playing cards, the primordial concept of playing poker hands against a ‘dealer,’ and applies conditional rules to the play.
Despite superficially appearing to be a game which one could play with a couple decks of cards, pen, and paper, closer inspection reveals that this could truly only be a VIDEO GAME.
To modernize our King of Sumer example, the pen and paper version of this game would require one to go to college, graduate in 4 (+/-) years, tack on an MBA at a vaguely prestigious state school, start off as a low-level grunt at a financial services firm, work your way up to day trader status until eventually earning a corner C-suite office where you could demand the direct report employ of a team of quants in order to enjoy the beautiful game of Balatro with that deck of cards in your coffee table drawer.