I realized how the game worked (mostly) during the third attempt. At first I didn't understood the concept of the enemies, I didn't see them when they were mentioned and it clicked only later when part of my hand wandered to the enemy side. I also didn't see the significance of diamonds, hearts etc. The only information came with one short text by the dealer, were at first I wasn't sure if it was tutorial or just talking. The text said diamonds have an edge, I have no idea what that means. Then the text says I should discard (I think) spades and clubs but doesn't tell me why. The animation after playing the hand is quick and satisfying but I don't fully understand what happens with all the damage numbers. Maybe the firs played hand should have more of an explanation what actually happens, maybe stopping the animation to explain why you get points/damage and so on. I also didn't get how my points correlated to the damage at the bottom. I also may encountered a bug, I had a 10, j, q, k and spade in my (4 diamonds and one other I think) hand but when all selected it said I have a flush(different colors in hand btw) not a street. When I removed a card it became a street.
Thanks for the detailed feedback. It helped me see that the tutorial was moving too quickly and wasn’t clearly connecting your actions to their results.
I’ve updated it to explicitly introduce itself as a tutorial, identify Spades and Clubs as enemies, and explain what Diamonds and Hearts do. Instructions stay visible while you decide, visual highlights guide your attention, and explanations wait until the hand has finished resolving so you have time to see what happened. It also clarifies Weapon × Mult and the difference between damage and score.
Your Straight/Flush example exposed an unintuitive rule. Straights now require four or five consecutive ranks, allow an extra card without breaking the sequence, and take priority over Flush.
I’d love to hear whether the updated version makes the first attempt clearer :-)
Way better. The concept and goal becomes easier to grasp. I played a few more rounds to see if some of my other questions/problems would answer themself while playing. And they did. Seeing the animations a few time made more clear how the damage calculates, that you get damage when healing at full life etc.
Overall I like your spin on Balatro. Especially the boss battle was cool (He kicked my ass) I probably will check further updates
Ahh, that's really great to hear! I'm especially happy that things started making more sense naturally as you kept playing. That's exactly what I was hoping for with the tutorial changes.
And hahaha, the boss got you 😭 Thanks a ton for giving it another try and for taking the time to come back with feedback. It genuinely helped improve the game!