by Balatro -Maker Localthunk has remained pretty private in the aftermath of the huge launch of the Poker Roguelike, choosing not to reveal his real name or even to appear personally to accept the Best Independent Game Award last year during the Game Awards. Nevertheless, Localthunk has opened the history of the development of Balatro in a new blog post about some of the health problems caused by the stress of the development of game.
The development of Balatro started in December 2021 as a hobby project for Localthunk, which worked in it at the time. By January 2022, Localthunk writes that he “was now completely immersed and obsessed with. This is my favorite feeling in the world. When I was back at the university, I would stay routinely until the early hours of the morning work on my weird game projects and my parents greeted while making their morning coffee.
Localthunk took a break of the project for a few months between March and May 2022 to keep his enthusiasm, and asked after returning to development, he started considering a Steam version of the game. In April 2023 he launched the game page of the game, and after a few public play tests and interest from YouTubers, he says that June 2023 “was about the time that Balatro was no longer a pure hobby for me”.
It was also in June 2023 – just before Localthunk was originally planning to launch the game – that publisher PlayStack came in contact. While the momentum of the game continued to grow, he spoke with various publishers and hired a lawyer to help with the contract negotiations.
By August 2023 Localthunk had signed a deal with PlayStack and the demo continued to get more and more attention. “This then started my sleep and heart problems,” he says. “I talked a little about this in the past, but from this moment on I really struggled with my physical and mental health to launch. This was entirely because of the stress around dealing with the public, players and the pressure to get everything before February 2024.”
Localthunk says that his sleeping and heart problems ‘worse’, and he would often have to “sleep on the couch because sleeping while we lie, always interrupted my heart.” Between all matters and other development obligations that grow around the development of Balatro, he thought he could not save time to visit a doctor.
That changed in January 2024. “One night I watch the film The Abyss with my partner and suddenly I get tunnel vision, my heart is absolutely beech and I feel that something is seriously wrong,” Localthunk writes. “I’m on the couch for a while, completely crazy. I’m really scared. I call my doctor and see him the next morning for an appointment.”
The doctor explained that this was not ‘not a heart attack or heart failure, but an anxiety fall. I am not normally a fearful person and have never had problems with this in the past, but I think the intense stress has caused quite a bit of damage for such a long time. He asks me if my work has been stressful lately. I don’t even know how I can explain it. “
Localthunk says that shortly after this incident was “probably my favorite moment” of the period prior to the launch of Balatro, so it was not entirely a death march in those last weeks, but he was “in the Supercrunch mode” even in February 2024 because the game was ready for launch.
Crunch has traditionally been a huge problem in the game industry, but we usually consider it a problem that is mainly associated with large studios. Naughty Dog has done Crunch. Vans software has done crunch. Larian has done Crunch. Crunchen Indies? Localthunk certainly presents itself as an example here. Although we often think of crunch as a result of poor management, passionate makers are more than able to stack the stress in themselves.
Of course the story of Balatro has a happy ending, since the game was launched for absolutely glowing reviews and one -day life -changing day. After seeing the shock of the Day One Sales, Localthunk says that the “other moment of that day protrudes, later that day when my partner came home from work. She had sustained all day and struggled to do work to do work, and when she came home, she gave me a big big hug.
Fallout: New Vegas Director and CRPG veteran Josh Sawyer says that Burnout “has replaced Crunch as the primary danger of the game industry.”
