This new poker-like card game for Android has taken over my life

I have what some might describe as an addictive personality. When I find something I like, I latch onto it like a facehugger on a minor cast member.

For mobile games, this is typically mitigated by freemium trappings like stamina or daily run limits. No matter how fun a game is, I’m not willing to spend more to play. Poverty trumps addiction, I guess.

But a new premium card game called Balatro just launched on Android, and without these artificial limits on play time, it has completely taken over my life.

A new take on a classic

It’s difficult to describe Balatro, but I’ll give it a shot. It combines the basic rules of poker, the low stakes of solitaire, and the extremely addictive gameplay loop of Slay the Spire. In other words, a poker-themed roguelike deck builder with a deep, but rewarding level of depth.

Each hand scores points based on the face value of the cards and the combination of cards achieved (two pair, full house, flush, straight, etc.). As you progress, these are multiplied in a huge variety of ways by joker cards, consumable cards based on tarot, card enhancements, and a bunch more.

It sounds like a lot, but one run is really all it takes for the hook to sink in deep.

The whole thing was developed by one person over the course of a few years, and first released on PC and consoles earlier this year. Last week, it finally landed on Android as a premium game with no ads ($9.99), and on iOS as part of Apple Arcade.

Now, when I say that the game has low stakes, I mean that there aren’t enemies. You always compete to achieve a high score, often with extremely challenging restrictions.

But there is a real danger here, and that’s how difficult it is to put down.

I installed the game one afternoon but didn’t try it until after I had put the kids to bed. “Maybe I’ll just do one run before I go to sleep,” I thought to myself.

Soon, it was three o’clock in the morning, and I was still glued to my phone. After several close calls, I had finally defeated the final ante and completed a run.

Victory came at a cost, however, as what little sleep I had was filled with dreams of jokers, chips, boosters, and all sorts of poker madness.

Playing is a gamble

In the first 24 hours after installing the game, I had played more than eight hours of Balatro. In the days after, things didn’t look much better. I was beginning to become more and more comfortable with the rules and strategies of the game, but less and less comfortable with the stranglehold it had on my time and attention.

Since it’s now on mobile devices, you can play it anywhere. Runs can take an hour or more, but the cloud save feature makes it super easy to pick it back up. If only it were that easy to put back down.

Just like real gambling, Balatro has the potential to ruin lives, one ante at a time.

After writing this piece, I am uninstalling it from my phone to try to regain control of my life. Or maybe I’ll just remove the icon from my home screen and try to limit screen time.

But one last run can’t hurt, right?