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As of January 2025, the poker-themed deck-building roguelike Balatro reached five million unit sales. The independent game was released in February 2024 and generated over one million unit sales within its first month of release. The indie card game was developed by anonymous solo developer LocalThunk and published by Playstack.

Balatro: an indie gaming success

Balatro was one of the gaming hits of 2024 and was nominated for five awards at The Game Awards 2024, winning Best Independent Game, Best Debut Indie Game, and Best Mobile game. A blend of the familiar, the classic deck of 52 cards and poker hands, as well as the creative, such as Jokers (permanent modifiers and multipliers), Tarot cards (one-time use effects), and Planet cards (poker hand level ups), make up a game with a gameplay loop that has been described as instantly addictive. Aside from being a critical success, the card game is also doing well in terms of revenue. While Balatro was initially released for PC, mobile releases followed in September 2024 and took the game to new heights of popularity. The Balatro mobile app grossed 1 million U.S. dollars during its first week on mobile and as of January 2025, the Balatro mobile app has generated over nine million U.S. dollars of in-app purchase revenues.

Roguelikes: popular with indie games

A popular gameplay style among indie games, roguelikes video games are typically defined by their dungeon-crawling adventures through procedurally generated levels, turn-based mechanics, grid-based movement, and the permanent death of the player character. If the character dies during a playthrough, called a “run”, the player has to start again from the beginning. The popularity of the genre has led to the growth of a subgenre called “rogue-lite ”, where indie game developers fused roguelike gameplay elements with other genres. Popular roguelike (or roguelite) indie games include Spelunky (roguelike 2D platformer), Slay the Spire (roguelike deck-building card game), Crypt of the NecroDancer (roguelike rhythm game), and Hades (roguelike action RPG). The creative possibilities of a roguelike gameplay are endless – quite literally, and highly engaging for players who are drawn to “just one more run”..