Have you mastered Balatro? If so, then you’re probably in the market for something very similar while you wait for either a content update or a follow-up from LocalThunk. Below is a list of not only games that share a few concepts with Balatro, but also several games we believe served as inspiration for the Roguelike card game hybrid. Many of these games also have demos available.
While card games like poker are the main driving force behind Balatro’s mechanics, many come back for a few rounds because of its endless replayability. So if you’re in the mood for something else of as high quality that you can repeatedly play to your heart’s content, we have a whole bunch of the best Roguelike games to test your ability to plan ahead. Here’s our list of the best games like Balatro that you can play right now.
Luck Be A Landlord
- Developer: Trampoline Tales
- Release Date: January 6, 2023
- Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android, macOS, Linux
Luck Be A Landlord is cited as a direct inspiration for Balatro because LocalThunk watched YouTuber Northernlion play the game. It’s easy to see how the pieces came together here, as this indie darling has you play a slot machine with collectible icons that interact with each other to earn coins, which in turn complete rounds.
Every run has limitless potential for massive combos, with some runs capable of raising hundreds, if not thousands, of coins per turn. The numbers have the potential to reach the same astronomical levels that Balatro is capable of, so there’s an immense level of satisfaction when you get the final piece of the puzzle to enable the cash to flow in. It’s a relatively simple, but immensely charming game that scratches that luck-based itch.
Word Play
- Developer: Game Marker’s Toolkit
- Release Date: July 14, 2025
- Platforms: PC
There are a couple of games that utilize the core concept of Balatro but put it into words– the better of those is Word Play. You have a handful of turns to create words from a set of tiles, each one using the same scoring system as the popular board game Scrabble. You don’t need to concern yourself with triple word scores or anything like that, as words longer than five letters will give you additional points for every tile you place down during that turn.
The Balatro elements come into play once you complete a round by accumulating the total points needed before you run out of plays. This ranges from additional letter types being added to the bag, modifiers that give you a bonus score based on a sequence of letters in a word, or upgrades that give a letter a new trait. If you think you’re an expert at word games like Scrabble or Bananagrams, then this one might be for you.
Dungeons and Degenerate Gamblers
- Developer: Purple Moss Collectors
- Release Date: August 8, 2024
- Platforms: PC, macOS, Linux
Personally endorsed by LocalThunk during its initial release, Dungeons and Degenerate Gamblers wasn’t inspired by Balatro but shares a similar concept. It swaps the game from poker to blackjack, but gives you similar buffs for every opponent you defeat. As you venture from room to room in this mysterious tavern, every patron wants to challenge you to a game of blackjack, no matter how good they are.
The cards you get can be hugely imaginative, such as a card that adds a stamp every time you draw it, giving you an instant score of 21 when full. Each one has at least one action it can take, with some even allowing you to exploit them at the cost of Advantage Points you collect in previous rounds. It sadly got lost in the shuffle at launch,
Aotenjo: Infinite Hands
- Developer: XO Cat
- Release Date: January 20, 2025
- Platforms: PC
Released afterwards, and from what we can gather, directly inspired by Balatro, is Aotenjo: Infinite Hands. First up, you don’t need to know everything about real Mahjong, as it merely uses the tiles in a similar way to how Balatro uses cards for poker hands. That said, Aotenjo has an extensive tutorial on using its Mahjong-themed tiles effectively, including definitions on what the dots mean and how each symbol affects the Fu and Fan (points and multiplier) of each hand.
This early access game allows you to change your hands in devious ways to bolster the score earned. Grains of rice can hide dots on a tile, changing its value as a result, while tweezers give you the ability to swap numbers. It will take a while to get used to, particularly with getting your head around how hands replay themselves in subsequent turns. However, when even early-game winning hands give you thousands of points, it’s a system just waiting for someone to break it wide open.
Inventorix
- Developer: Arcaludi
- Release Date: September 1, 2025
- Platforms: PC
If you’re one of those folks who really enjoy moving around items in Resident Evil’s inventory cases, then Inventorix might just be for you. This space-themed game uses a similar gameplay loop as Balatro, except the key difference is that it’s more about placing figures into a limited space, where items can combo with each other if placed in proximity. As you progress through each round, more space becomes available, but predicting which pieces will appear for you to place down is trickier than it sounds.
Thankfully, combining items of the same type and rank allows you to score more for that particular piece, enabling you to reach the money-based target. Aliens also add a bunch of bonuses to keep you focused on one archetype. It has a level structure that introduces concepts as you complete runs, so it does a good job of easing you in. Inventorix has more of a puzzle game focus than the rest of the list, and yet it still allows for similar satisfactory builds when the stars align.
TypInc.
- Developer: Game Game Games
- Release Date: June 29, 2025
- Platforms: PC, macOS
Drawing obvious comparisons to other typing-based games, such as Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, TypInc. gives you passages from famous novels as its levels. The points you earn are based on accuracy and any bonuses you’ve accumulated along the way. Striking a balance between the accuracy of the keys you type and your words per minute is vital to completing each round. You may need to type in multiple passages to earn enough points, but in case your fingers are suffering a bit, there are gaps between each line of text.
As one of the more skill-based games like Balatro, your ability to type accurately is vital to getting a longer run. Each round spans a week, with every day giving you a new debuff if you make a typo, so mistakes are costly. That said, much like Balatro, the cards you get grant you bonus points and multipliers to help you achieve the ever-increasing points goal. If nothing else, this is a great way to type faster and more accurately, which is a handy transferable skill to have in this age.
Slay The Spire
- Developer: Mega Crit
- Release Date: January 23, 2019
- Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android, macOS, Linux
Of course, if we’re talking about deckbuilder Roguelikes, sitting toward the top of the tower is Slay The Spire. After choosing your character, you’ll navigate across the map throughout three levels to discover enemies to fight and gain more cards to put in your deck. Campfires heal you or upgrade your deck, while merchants and other events can make or break every run. All of this is to prepare you for the boss at the top of every level, which is random and has some kind of devious trick for you to overcome.
All is not lost if you do perish, as more card types unlock for each character, giving you more options in future sessions. When you’ve conquered the main story, you also have the Daily Climb to beat, as well as Custom Climbs where you can tweak the difficulty. Of all the games on this list, this is the one that always screams for one more run. We have every hope that the sequel is just as endlessly replayable, but for now, you can’t go wrong with playing Slay The Spire.
Inscryption
- Developer: Daniel Mullins Games
- Release Date: October 19, 2021
- Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, macOS, Linux
Perhaps the oddest inclusion on this list, as we’re not specifically talking about the main campaign of Inscryption. You should absolutely play through the entire story mode first, as it introduces the mechanics of the cards, while also telling a meta-filled tale filled with conspiracies and creepy foreshadowing. Also, if you’ve never played any of Daniel Mullins’ other games, Pony Island and The Hex, you should absolutely delve into them before playing this one.
However, Kaycee’s Mod, the standalone DLC, is perhaps the closest that Inscryption ever gets to a Roguelike deckbuilding game. You start with a handful of cards, each depicting woodland critters and other beasts with a slightly macabre tone. The aim is the same as the beginning of Inscryption’s campaign: beat Leshy at his own game, which is remarkably similar to Slay The Spire’s levels, just far darker. You can tweak the game with challenges, such as disabling key mechanics, limiting yourself to one life, replacing normal battles with more difficult totem fights, and even giving totems for the preferred card type to bosses. It’s the perfect way to expand on an already great game and give it near-endless replayability.
Peglin
- Developer: Red Nexus Games
- Release Date: April 25, 2022
- Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android
Peglin takes the core gameplay of PopCap’s Peggle series and puts it into a thoroughly enjoyable Roguelike, where each upgrade manipulates the board and the balls you launch into it. Delving deeper into its Slay The Spire-like levels, ranging from forests to castles, and eventually the mines, you’ll face enemies from slimes to knights and other creepy beasties in the caverns. All of them can attack your poor little goblin guy. Some can even do it from a distance or teleport to bop his head within a few turns. The bosses are also random per run, so you’ll never know who you’re facing until you see them on the map.
Depending on how accurate you are with the ball at the end of a round, you’ll find treasure to open, enemies to fight, NPCs and other events that require some decision-making, or even mini-bosses to thwart; however, with a little help from the various power-ups, peg types, and upgrades you can buy or pick up along the way. There are ones that poison enemies whenever they’re hit, or multiballs that split off in different directions to hit as many pegs as possible. Manipulating this pachinko machine does take a bit of skill, but there’s nothing quite like making that bank shot to get those harder-to-reach pegs.
Dicey Dungeons
- Developer: Terry Cavanagh
- Release Date: August 13, 2019
- Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android, macOS, Linux
Transformed into dice by Lady Luck, Dicey Dungeons has its intrepid adventurers venture through dungeons filled with monsters to beat. As you descend further into each episode, you’ll gather more equipment to fill your limited bag space, with the idea being that you get enough experience by beating all the monsters on the way to the boss. Defeat them to get a spin on the wheel to win your freedom. However, with Lady Luck behind the wheel, the odds are stacked against you.
What it shares with Balatro is its structure. The dice themselves have their own ability and limit break that play a huge part in determining which weapons and gadgets you should take. The Warrior, for example, can reroll dice three times in a turn with Combat Roll, while their limit break Fury uses the next equipment twice. With six dice to be unlocked, each with six episodes to finish, and a handful of extra levels as free DLC, there’s a lot of spelunking fun to have with this one.
CloverPit
- Developer: Panik Arcade
- Release Date: September 26, 2025
- Platforms: PC
CloverPit is what happens if you blend Luck Be A Landlord with a dash of Balatro and a whole gallon of Buckshot Roulette. Locked inside an absurdly tiny cell, perilously positioned above a manmade chasm below, you must make the quota in each round or risk being dropped. To help you in your plight, there are items that you can buy with tickets at any time, as well as a phone call between rounds that gives you a free perk.
Of course, this slot machine really does like to throw just about everything at you, so you may have to try more than a few times to get the next key and get one step closer to freedom. Sometimes you get unlucky because you get a matching set of 666, which loses all accumulated coins from that round. However, with a constant stream of unlockables, including a deck of memory cards that modifies how the core mechanics work, this is a thrilling Roguelike full of surprises with every pull of the slot machine’s lever.
Monster Train 2
- Developer: Shiny Shoe
- Release Date: May 21, 2025
- Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5
Titans now control Heaven, disrupting the delicate balance. To master Monster Train 2, you must play cards with hellish demons and angelic hosts to thwart any enemies boarding your carriages and making it through the three levels to snuff out your train’s pyre. By stopping each wave of foes, you progress further along the tracks, stopping at shops and facilities to upgrade your forces and your deck of cards.
These cards feature keywords similar to those found in Magic: The Gathering or Hearthstone, where mechanics are shared across multiple cards. This means you can use these synergies to create builds that exploit a particular mechanic, such as Valor or Pyregel, to give you many viable options. Mastering one clan’s set of cards is just the first step, as there are many more to choose from, each with its own key mechanics. The best bit is that once you’ve finished the campaign, there are a whole bunch of challenges and other modes, and even new powerful cards via its free Lost Arsenal update to test your skills. We recommend getting on board with this one, even if you never played the first game.
- Developer: Orta, Zach & Friends
- Release Date: December 4, 2023
- Platforms: Browser-based
While Puzzmo isn’t the most obvious choice, as it’s not a game that’s on Steam but a website, there is a mode called Pile-Up Poker that offers a new puzzle every day. The idea is that you’re dealt a series of five cards, which you then play four of them to a 5×5 grid. By making Poker hands, you’ll score more points if you get each one to link together in multiple directions. After your third hand, the round ends, tallying up the accumulated score to get an overall total. The first three hands per day are free, but the final one is locked behind a monthly paywall.
Those who master the regular version can try their hand at Pile-Up Poker Pro, which gives you more cards to place and a handful more spaces to put them in. On top of that, it also has a selection of crosswords, puzzles, word games, and other variants of games you’d likely see in the New York Times. Really Bad Chess is another favorite, as it gives you a new starting lineup each day.
