With 1 million copies sold, Balatro has cemented itself as the roguelike hit of 2024 - despite the fact that its underlying code is apparently "held together with hopes and dreams." After some examples of the game's beautifully nightmarish code hit the internet, game devs are rallying to say, basically, if it ain't broke don't fix it.
The original tweet that spawned all this discourse has since been deleted - probably smart - but the gist is that Balatro has bespoke code for many objects where modern programming standards would typically suggest that you build some universal ways of handling those objects. That is a gross oversimplification, and this breakdown from game developer Sean Barrett will give you a much smarter overview of what's happening here, but that's the gist.
Balatro developer LocalThunk has been quick to cop to the idea that the game's code is messy, noting that it's "held together with hopes and dreams" and joking that "they won't teach you that in a fancy Software Engineering course." But game developers are rallying around the idea that it's never really been about creating clean code - if it works, then that's enough.
- Balatro creator started "properly playing the game myself about a week before launch" and had "a pretty emotional moment" where he realized it's "actually fun"
- Balatro creator initially considered a Steam release in part to help "get a game developer job somewhere," and after 5 million sales I'd say he found one
Remember the goal is to ship games, not make the neatest and most elegant code routines. https://t.co/mwKeWi3We9April 23, 2024
I'm working on a personal project in which I have forbidden myself to work beyond the negative XYZ axis so I don't have to deal with obnoxious math problems. Only positive values.If it works, is easy to debug and performance is not an issue, then it's the right decission. 👍 https://t.co/zMBY4Ktvl4April 23, 2024
If Balatro was at the top of Steam, I can only imagine it made at least a few million dollars. I don't know of any clean code enthusiasts who can boast such earnings from their own products. They usually earn from consulting and selling books on clean code.Telling, no? https://t.co/8nRTOOcMMJApril 23, 2024
Ultimately, that's what LocalThunk figures, too. "It's not perfect but I know where every single thing is and I'm the only one that needs to maintain it, so it makes sense to me. If it's dumb and it works then it's not dumb!"
We spoke with LocalThunk about Balatro's ingenious twists on poker earlier this year.
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