In the future, secretaries and receptionists will no longer be playing Solitaire on their computers, they will be playing Balatro instead.

in 1989, Tetris was released for the NES. It is commonly regarded as one of the best puzzle games of all time due to its precise design and carefully considered gameplay. It has no fat on it to trim and the fluff was never there to begin with. It needed no balance patches, and to go along with it, that one, continuous song that became etched into the minds of a generation. It was a real life Polybius, and many people called it the perfect game.

35 years later, Balatro was released.

Balatro is a special kind of game. It's a game where the success of the player isn't determined by how fast they can act, like tetris, how precise their inputs, like mario, or even how much they know, like pokemon. It's instead about how they use their head to navigate simple systems that play off each other perfectly. A player need not even tab out of the game to access all the information about what could appear in the shop, what cards they might draw, or how much their hand may score. But there's ambiguity there, there's uncertainty. It's the ability to have enough control and information to make an informed decision, like chess, but enough randomness to bring additional excitement that is absent in games with less ambiguity. And so you sit at your computer, hitting that reset shop button, eyes glued to the screen, waiting for that one piece so that your build can all fall into place. 50 gold becomes 45. 45 becomes 39. 32. 25. This next shop needs the card you want if you want to be able to afford it. You hover your mouse over the reroll button. The one, infectious melody playing over and over in your head. And you've travelled back to 1989, you're sitting on the carpet too close to the screen in your pyjamas, it's past your bedtime. Boom. Tetris.

It might be 35 years until we get another game quite like Balatro. But I'll keep on watching that number go up, keep on listening to that song, keep on saying "one more go" until we do.

LET'S GO GAMBLING!

Wheel of Fortune: Nope!
Aw, dang it!
Wheel of Fortune: Nope!
Aw, dang it!
Wheel of Fortune: Nope!
Aw, dang it!
Wheel of Fortune: Nope!
Aw, dang it!
Wheel of Fortune: Nope!
Aw, dang it!
Wheel of Fortune: Nope!
Aw, dang it!
Wheel of Fortune: Nope!
Aw, dang it!
Wheel of Fortune: Nope!
Aw, dang it!
Wheel of Fortune: Nope!
Aw, dang it!
Wheel of Fortune: Nope!
Aw, dang it!