The poker-themed roguelike deck-builder, Balatro landed on PC, console and mobile screens in 2024, and immediately became a sensation, selling millions of copies over its first year and winning award after award.
A new game recently appeared on Gamefound which looks a lot like a physical manifestation of the game: Decko, by designer Haakon Gaarder, responsible for games such as the popular Villagers and Moon, among others. (Spoiler: while some ideas in the game absolutely overlap with concepts in Balatro, they’re absolutely not the same thing: there’s a vast difference between a single-player card-based video game and a physical version with real opponents, especially one that looks as nice as Decko).
The blurb for this 2–5 player game is: ‘Imagine a mix of poker and express deckbuilding, with a tableau of powerful jokers bending the rules.’ There’s quite a lot to unpack in there! Yes, it’s based on Poker—there’s drawing of cards, betting using chips, raising those bets and folding hands, and winning hands are the same as those in Poker, sort of—but there’s much more playfulness and speed about this game, as opposed to the ponderous, stern-faced, smoke-filled room atmosphere of Poker. And there’s deckbuilding: you start with a basic deck, but grow and shrink it during the game, gaining some very un-poker-like cards along the way, not to mention the jokers.
Playing Decko
A round begins with players drawing five cards from their personal deck (as the game progresses, the distribution of cards in the deck will change, hence the deckbuilding aspect of the game), then players place bets in sequence, raising (for the non-poker players reading this, increasing the bet), calling (equalling the bet) or folding (withdrawing from play for this round, and also skipping any end round rewards), until everyone still playing has bet the same number of chips or the round maximum has been reached. At this point, players reveal their hands and the winner grabs all chips bet by players who haven’t folded plus those from the house bet. All other non-folding players have the option to buy cards, jokers and special actions based on a ‘monetary’ score for their hands. At this point, hands are discarded to player-specific discard piles. This is also where bought cards are placed, i.e., you don’t get to play them immediately, but only after your draw deck is empty and you shuffle the discard pile to form a new one.
And repeat until one player has amassed sixty chips or twelve rounds have been completed, whichever comes first.
Buying cards means taking them from the ‘flop’—a shared marketplace—paying the price indicated on the slot containing the card. These flop cards are similar to normal playing cards, but all possess some special ability, such as being playable as one of two different values, granting you additional chips or money, or modifying the values of other cards in your hand.
Special actions let you pay some money to, for example, buy chips or ‘burn’ a card. Burning means taking a card from your hand out of play permanently, well, almost permanently. (Players have the option of doing this at the start of the first round too.)
Finally, jokers… The game board contains a marketplace of jokers from which players can purchase those on display for chips (not money this time). Jokers give players ongoing abilities for certain points in the game: for example the Magic Hat joker acts at dealing time (when you draw your hand), letting you take one extra card; or the Vampire joker acts at call time, gaining you a chip for each other player with a matching bet; or Harlequin, acting at burn time, lets you place the burned card into another player’s deck rather than disposing of it.
Two rounds of the game are designated wildcard rounds, were things get a little weird (perhaps I mean weirder). For example, if the Inferno wildcard happens to be the one selected for that round, players draw from their burn piles rather than the normal draw decks.
The Gamefound Project
The project itself is quite interesting. There is only a single reward, the game—simples! The designer says this is a ‘deluxified game’ with no messing about with a standard version and a natty, nicer components one, which does mean you’re paying for ‘upgraded’ components whether you want them or not.
Having said that, the gold-edged cards, the chunky clay poker chips and the neoprene mat do look attractive.
While there’s only one reward, I should note that the project is advertising additional stretch goals, which appear to be additional cards of some type; so far, a few extra jokers have been announced, but the rest remain secret.
On that note, a feature of Balatro is that, being a digital game, its creator can add additional cards and actions as time passes; I wonder if Decko will gain future expansions offering similar.
One thing to note about this game is that the designer has said it will be available on Gamefound only; there will be no retail version.
Wrap Up
I have to admit that Balatro never grabbed me, but this does look like fun with the right group of people.
The again, if you like Balatro, you’re sure to like Decko; if you like the idea of Poker, but want extra gaming bling, Decko’s for you. If you like high quality components in a card game, well, you’ve got the message by now.
You can find out much more on the game’s project page, including a copy of the rule book.
About the Author:
When not playing boardgames or blogging about them, L.N. Hunter keeps himself occupied writing fiction: a comic fantasy novel, The Feather and the Lamp, sits alongside close to 100 short stories in various magazines and anthologies, and on websites and podcasts (see https://linktr.ee/L.N.Hunter for a full list). L.N. occasionally masquerades as a software developer or can be found unwinding in a disorganised home in Carlisle, UK, along with two cats and a soulmate.
