Recently, the solo developer behind Balatro, one of 2024’s most highly awarded games, opened up about his journey in a blog post. In an article dubbed ‘The Balatro Timeline’, LocalThunk took a deep dive into the end-to-end history of what it took to make Balatro, which was released in February 2024 to an overwhelmingly positive reception.
LocalThunk explained about the very origins of Balatro – which was first named ‘Joker Poker’ – in this timeline walkthrough. He also gives readers a transparent insight into the toll that creating the game had on his mental and physical health, which is something many gamers never realise.
‘My Sleep and my Heart are Getting Worse’
In The Balatro Timeline, LocalThunk tracks back through three years of development history, going back to December 2021, when the first concept of what would become known as Balatro surfaced. It was being pieced together alongside a full-time IT job, and back then, LocalThunk couldn’t ever imagine it becoming as successful as it has.
The full account of this stunning development journey is a wonder to read, and it paints a clear picture of just how impactful these things can be on developers – especially solo developers.
LocalThunk explained that his mental and physical health were put to the test during the creation of Balatro, with the situation becoming much worse as the launch got closer and the attention around Balatro started ramping up fast.
For instance, it was noted that in August 2023, just six months before the launch of Balatro:
This is when my sleep and heart started having issues.
I really struggled with my physical and mental health from this time onward all the way up to launch. This was entirely because of the stress around dealing with the public, players, and the pressure to get everything done before February 2024.
By October 2023, things were getting much worse for LocalThunk:
My sleep and my heart are getting worse. Every few nights I need to sleep sitting upright on the couch because sleeping while lying down kept getting interrupted by my heart.
I stupidly thought that I couldn’t handle going to the doctor while dealing with all the dev and business stuff swirling around at the time. I felt totally overwhelmed.
Everything from signing with a publisher to hiring lawyers to hammer out contracts is detailed in The Balatro Timeline. It’s an account of the highs and lows of solo development, but fortunately, it ends on a jubilant note.
LocalThunk revealed that he made $600,000 in just a couple of hours on Steam alone, and on launch day, he sat down to celebrate with a bottle of champagne and some burgers.
Nice.
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