# Balatro

31 Hacker News commenters recommended Balatro and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 11 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** People recommend Balatro as an addictive, polished roguelite card game that runs well on many systems.

## Why people recommend it

- Addictive, fun roguelite card gameplay (5 comments): "Games like Balatro and Megabonk have broken my previous definition of "fun" in a fantastic way." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48311667)) "Balatro and Vampire Survivor are plenty of fun for some people" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46409101)) "You never know if you'll hit that Balatro magic." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46447185))
- Polished, high-quality indie game (4 comments): "The most polished game I've played, Balatro, was built using Lua and Love2D specifically because of the iteration speed that they made possible." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49190324)) "But the Indie world is huge and full of innovation. Balatro, Stardew Valley, Disco Elysium, Slay the Spire, Cuphead, I could go on." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48936021)) "Balatro is a great game and the mainstream success is warranted" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46373231))
- Runs smoothly on varied hardware (2 comments): "Getting it to run in KDE was straightforward." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46371991)) "Those games run with no difficulties." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48113500))
- Succeeds on quality, not marketing (2 comments): "you can succeed spectacularly with genuinely good games like Balatro or Slay the Spire" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50138735)) "There are fun games that succeed without marketing, e.g. Balatro" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47327451))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Slay the Spire](https://hackerapproved.com/p/slay-the-spire.md): 14 recommend
- [Slay the Spire 2](https://hackerapproved.com/p/slay-the-spire-2.md): 9 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Balatro", https://hackerapproved.com/p/balatro/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).