Balatro. It becomes a spreadsheet sim very quickly, in my opinion. I think part of the reason Binding of Isaac and Hades feel much more timeless to me is that every run has this sort of intuitive randomness vs this just full rng you have to counter with math. Balatro feels solved, and while I guess you could count Hades max heat run as “solving” the game, the replayability of it feels much higher because builds feels more dynamic than “make number go up faster”.
Thank you, this really describes my feelings towards that game well. The first few runs were great with experimenting and stuff but then you try for higher stakes and quickly fall into the optimal strat flow where it’s kinda boring unless you get ridiculous runs but i don’t wanna wade through meh to get that one god run that’s actually fun.
Not that quickly that you dont get your money’s worth though. Balatro is a good mobile game honestly, for a quick run when you have time to kill, but I wouldnt find myself sat at my PC playing it.
That quickly, I can’t with this utilitarian consumerist take, like, you didn’t buy a game, you bought a minimum specified undetermined quantum of enjoyment. It’s so sterile. It’s like saying, yeah the first part of the movie was great, but then it turned to shit, so you got your money’s worth of enjoyment points so you’re overall on plus. Sorry for sounding harsh, it’s a pet peeve of mine, I don’t like to consider games some sort of staple commodity to wring out enjoyment stats out of and then discard, it’s more to the experience than that. It’s like watching half a painting, you get some enjoyment out of it, not all of it, but halfway there, so then it’s fine.
You determine your own worth of something. But thats literally what paying for something or a service is. Balatro is worth its price to me, I can play it for hours now, not touch it an play it for hours in a year, two, whatever. Someone made a nice game, I buy it and play it, it’s about as simple as capitalism gets in games.
Not everything has to have infinite value forever, I will get bored of a game and will never play it again, does that mean I should have never bought it and enjoyed the experience it gave me??? Am I missing your point here or is that just a wild take?
Balatro. It becomes a spreadsheet sim very quickly, in my opinion. I think part of the reason Binding of Isaac and Hades feel much more timeless to me is that every run has this sort of intuitive randomness vs this just full rng you have to counter with math. Balatro feels solved, and while I guess you could count Hades max heat run as “solving” the game, the replayability of it feels much higher because builds feels more dynamic than “make number go up faster”.
All games are spreadsheets if you look hard enough
It’s not breaking the illusion that’s the tricky part.
For me, the most boring aspect of Balatro is the first couple blinds. Holy shit am I tired of “you MUST play a flush or straight.”
Try plasma, it upends the whole formula.
Some people like spreadsheet sims.
Thank you, this really describes my feelings towards that game well. The first few runs were great with experimenting and stuff but then you try for higher stakes and quickly fall into the optimal strat flow where it’s kinda boring unless you get ridiculous runs but i don’t wanna wade through meh to get that one god run that’s actually fun.
Not that quickly that you dont get your money’s worth though. Balatro is a good mobile game honestly, for a quick run when you have time to kill, but I wouldnt find myself sat at my PC playing it.
That quickly, I can’t with this utilitarian consumerist take, like, you didn’t buy a game, you bought a minimum specified undetermined quantum of enjoyment. It’s so sterile. It’s like saying, yeah the first part of the movie was great, but then it turned to shit, so you got your money’s worth of enjoyment points so you’re overall on plus. Sorry for sounding harsh, it’s a pet peeve of mine, I don’t like to consider games some sort of staple commodity to wring out enjoyment stats out of and then discard, it’s more to the experience than that. It’s like watching half a painting, you get some enjoyment out of it, not all of it, but halfway there, so then it’s fine.
You determine your own worth of something. But thats literally what paying for something or a service is. Balatro is worth its price to me, I can play it for hours now, not touch it an play it for hours in a year, two, whatever. Someone made a nice game, I buy it and play it, it’s about as simple as capitalism gets in games.
Not everything has to have infinite value forever, I will get bored of a game and will never play it again, does that mean I should have never bought it and enjoyed the experience it gave me??? Am I missing your point here or is that just a wild take?
Agreed. I didnt get into it until I played on the phone.