To celebrate 2 years of Balatro, creator LocalThunk reflected on dropping out of an engineering program to make games: 'Even if I could warn myself I’m not sure what I could have said to prepare for the insanity'

LONDON, ENGLAND - APRIL 8: Ben Starr, winner of the Debut Game Award for 'Balatro', poses backstage during the BAFTA Games Awards 2025 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on April 8, 2025 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Scott Garfitt/BAFTA via Getty Images) — (Image credit: Getty Images)

Even two years after release, Balatro is one of the biggest and best roguelikes going—there may be no one more keenly aware of that than developer LocalThunk, who's managed to keep a low profile despite his game selling millions of copies and scoring crossover after crossover.

In a recent anniversary blog post titled "Bad Grades," LocalThunk looked back on his earliest forays into game development. "I think about that version of myself a lot now," he wrote. "I didn’t know what was coming and even if I could warn myself I’m not sure what I could have said to prepare for the insanity. I’m not even sure if there’s a lesson to learn."

His first game was a four-word ladder game in command line, something he cooked up during an Intro to Computer Science class. He "wasn't a good student" by his own admission, but it inspired him to drop out of the engineering program he was in to pursue a degree in programming. It set his education back a year, but he was passionate about it—engineering, on the other hand, was a bore.

"It was hardly a choice at all," he wrote. "I wasn’t any good at [programming], nor was I aware of what may await me after graduation, but … I had created a few programs that convinced me this is the thing for me. I want to make things with code."

He calls it "the best time of my life," and he'd probe the frontiers of his interest even further with his most ambitious project yet: a grand strategy "land-grab simulation" in the vein of Europa Universalis. Nothing like the madcap poker game we eventually got, but the right food for his nascent passion. Crafting it took more all-nighters, more rough prototypes to share with friends and family, and more bad grades.

Naturally, he never anticipated the "success, baggage, attention, heartache, fear, stress, and joy" that this obsession would eventually win him. He's still staying up late, still scrawling ideas down, and, of course, still programming. He ends the post by assuring fans that still includes Balatro's hotly anticipated 1.1 update, and thanking them "for allowing this terrible student to keep staying up too late."

Justin first became enamored with PC gaming when World of Warcraft and Neverwinter Nights 2 rewired his brain as a wide-eyed kid. As time has passed, he's amassed a hefty backlog of retro shooters, CRPGs, and janky '90s esoterica. Whether he's extolling the virtues of Shenmue or troubleshooting some fiddly old MMO, it's hard to get his mind off games with more ambition than scruples. When he's not at his keyboard, he's probably birdwatching or daydreaming about a glorious comeback for real-time with pause combat. Any day now...

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