The mastermind behind Balatro, LocalThunk, shared a much clearer look at what is coming in the long-awaited 1.1 update and its a big one.
Balatro‘s 1.1 update has been relentlessly teased by the game’s creator, LocalThunk, for over a year, and today the Joker maker finally uncorked some of what’s to come in the next update. While new Jokers are certainly coming (including Drawn-to-hand-drawn ones) the new additions go beyond expanding Balatro’s gallery of Jokers. This time, the update is not a calendar.
LocalThunk is also changing how Vouchers can appear, separating new content from balance changes through an optional profile setting, and making it so each game has a fallback option if mods are installed. LocalThunk is making progress on the update (as announced) but it appears to be going more slowly than development would have liked. The entire post that tells what LocalThunk has up their sleeve can be seen here.
One of the gameplay additions is a new trigger for when a card is drawn to the player’s hand (and it just so happens the Joker used has placeholder art, drawn by hand), but not hand drawn. LocalThunk said the condition can activate during regular rounds as well as when cards appear inside Tarot and Spectral Packs. LocalThunk showed what the mechanic can do with “Ace up your Sleeve”, which would grant +1 Mult whenever an Ace is drawn to hand. The example does not appear to confirm Ace up your Sleeve as a Joker, but it shows how the new trigger can create effects that happen before a card is played or scored.
While no new Jokers have been confirmed yet, LocalThunk figures at least four will be added to Balatro when the dust settles (which is twice as many as LocalThunk initially teased). One of the new Jokers (confirmed) is called Survey, and LocalThunk described its effect as “does the thing with the face cards”. It appears as a hand-drawn placeholder image. The Balatro Reddit (and a fan called trevorade) quantified everything LocalThunk revealed on Discord, and it’s listed below.
- A tier 2 voucher named “Lunker”
- The algorithm for picking the next voucher will bias tier 2 a bit more. (Specifically, if you have N tier 1 vouchers of M incomplete voucher sets, you will have an N in M chance to get a tier 2 voucher at voucher draw time)
- New mechanic! “When a card is drawn to hand.” Triggers in rounds as well as Tarot and Spectral packs. E.g. you could have a joker: “Ace up your Sleeve”, “+1 Mult when an Ace is Drawn To Hand.”
- There will in fact be at least 4 new jokers (previously reported there were at least 2 new jokers)
- Blue stakes have been reworked (he had a previous blue stakes rework but switched to a new blue stakes a few months ago and he likes it a lot more and reports it fits much better)
- In the 1.1 update, blue stakes and joker reworks will always apply but a checkbox in the profile will enable new content (e.g. vouchers and jokers). Achievements will still be possible with 1.1 new content checked off
- Steam will have a 1.0 branch selectable after 1.1 for legacy mod support.
- No Balatro 1.2 planned. He truly expects to release 1.1.0 then 1.1.1 a few months later with bug fixes and balance tweaks and that will be it.
- No multiplayer version of Balatro planned.
- He uses placeholder art while he works on the game (see smiley card).
Despite all of the new information, LocalThunk stopped short of giving fans a timeframe for launch so dfans will just have to wait longer for more news to come out regarding Balatro 1.1.
