It is inevitable that when a game like Balatro rocks up, is really good, and makes a gazillion dollars, that there will be the odd imitator here and there. Sincerity, flattery, yada, yada, yada, point is, it’s all fine as long as you at least put enough of a twist in there to make it more of an “influenced by” over a “wholesale ripoff” kind of thing. I think Gambonanza, a roguelike deckbuilding chess game, fits into the former quite nicely.

