Balatro creator LocalThunk stays so anonymous, a GDC attendee couldn't believe how he "crushed" the roguelike's base difficulty: "'Wow you must have played this before!'"

Balatro Joker plush
(Image credit: PlayStack / Localthunk / Makeship)

There are, of course, many benefits to maintaining anonymity in our increasingly exposed, digitized world. Remaining under-the-radar affords you privacy to exist more peacefully, or, if you're pseudonymous Balatro creator LocalThunk, it♈ a🍌llows you to sneak into your own GDC demo booth like a little rat in a pizza parlor.

"One of my fav moments from GDC," LocalThunk says in a series of . "They had a booth set up to play Balatro since it was an award nominee. I w♉atched for a bit, then I gave it a go myself."

to real Balatro heads.

So LocalThunk walked away from his successful GDC demo run with the swagger of someone who just instigated a missile crisis, I'm assuming, causing an onlooker to approach him "as I was about 💃to leave," LocalThunk says on BluꦚeSky.

"'Wow, you must have played this bef🌄ore!'" he recalls thꩲem saying.

"'I guess you could say that,'" he replied d🐟emurely.

"Also, this was actually the first and only time I have seen strangers play my game in real life," LocalThunk continues. "Have yet to see Balatro in the wild. So as far as I'm concerned y'all are just Truman Show-ing me." If you ask me, considering Balatro's 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:verifiably wild success since its 2024 release, we're in more of a Batman situation. Look, here come 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:200 Jokers.

Baldur's Gate 3 director Swen Vincke says indie poker roguelike Balatro was his 2024 GOTY, beating out Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Astro Bot, and Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.

Ashley is a Senไior Writer at GamesRadar+. She's been a staff writer at Kotaku and Inverse, too, and she's written freelance pieces about horror and women in games for sites like Rolling Stone, Vulture, IGN, and Polygon. When she's not covering gaming news, she's usually working on expa🐼nding her doll collection while watching Saw movies one through 11.

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