Balatro is just as good on mobile, perhaps even more dangerous

Alex Choros - Managing Editor + Group Telco Editor

Last updated 26 September 2024

Balatro is arguably the year's breakout video game hit. It came from nowhere and took over everyone's lives. I've spent over 30 hours playing it on Switch, while my colleague Georgia from our sister site SafeWise has put in a massive 120 hours.

As of tomorrow, Balatro is available on mobile, and that's bad news for productivity everywhere.

If you're not familiar with Balatro, the pitch is essentially poker meet solitaire, but you can cheat - kinda. Each round is made up of three games, where you'll play poker hands to beat a target score. In between you'll "upgrade" your deck with various modifiers, which is where Balatro can really get its hooks into you.

Upgrades take various forms. Jokers are the big one, which can dramatically increase your scoring or change the rules of the game. One Joker lets you play straights with four cards instead of five, for example. Another increases the amount of points you get for playing pairs.

There are also tarot cards, which act as modifiers for your deck. They can add special attributes to cards, change the suit, or even destroy cards entirely. Then there are simpler upgrades that simply increase the points for a given hand type or add extra cards to your deck.

It might sound a little complicated, but Balatro does a good job of slowly easing you in. Before you know, you're putting together weirder and wilder combos and you're completely hooked.

Importantly, Balatro's gameplay has seamlessly translated from a controller to a touchscreen. It's just as good to play with the touchscreen on my iPhone 16 Pro Max as it was on my Switch.

And that's bad.

Balatro is the kind of game that suckers you into playing one more round. When I only had it on my Switch, that was fine. Sure, there were times I spent far longer playing than I wanted to, but I eventually had to put my Switch down.

The problem is, I've got my phone everywhere. I've been playing Balatro on the walk to the gym, on the stairmaster, and taking sneaky breaks throughout the work day. (It's testing, okay?) I've accidentally stayed up past midnight playing Balatro on my phone far too many times this week. I figure I'll just play a round or two and then bam.

Just in case it wasn't clear: Balatro is fantastic.

You can get Balatro on iPhone from tomorrow as part of an Apple Arcade subscription. You'll be able to purchase it as a standalone game for $15 on both iPhone and Android.

If you could all also lose too many hours to it, that would make me feel better.

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Alex Choros

Managing Editor + Group Telco Editor | X | Instagram | Threads | LinkedIn

Alex Choros is the Managing Editor of WhistleOut Australia and an award-winning journalist. He's been writing about consumer technology for over a decade and is an expert on the Australian telco sector, to the point where he knows far too many phone and internet plans by heart. In addition to leading the WhistleOut editorial team, Alex is responsible for ruining the office Sonos with his troubled taste in music.

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