Low Five Gaming

Balatro

• Studio Low Five • Episode 43

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Alex and Luke Talk Balatro

In this episode, Alex and Luke go all-in on Balatro, the breakout roguelike deck-builder that’s equal parts poker, chaos, and obsession. Developed by LocalThunk and released in early 2024, Balatro blends classic card game mechanics with deck-breaking combos, jokers with wild effects, and a vibe that’s one part casino fever dream, one part endless strategy loop.

At the time of this recording, Balatro holds a Metacritic score of 90, and according to HowLongToBeat, you can complete the game in 7 hours—but good luck stopping. This game sinks its teeth in fast and doesn’t let go.

Both Alex and Luke played on their Steam Decks, chasing multipliers, unlocking jokers, and debating the most degenerate combos they could get away with. Join them as they unpack what makes Balatro feel so addicting, how it slots into the growing roguelike canon, and why it's been living rent-free in their brains.

This episode is unofficially brought to you in part by Slides.

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Alex:

Yo, what up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Low Five Gaming. You got me, your host, Alex, and my co-hosted brother Luke. What up, dude?

Luke:

Preparing not much. How you doing?

Alex:

Doing well. We're recording this in the daytime. We gotta bring that daytime energy.

Luke:

Yeah, yeah. I even got my bubbler over here, dude, because I'm, you know, super cool. Brought to you by Clarbrun.

Alex:

So no big deal. Clarbrun's alright. Clarbrun.

Luke:

I haven't seen Clarbrun since college. Uh, my roommate, we used to always make fun of Clarbrun, but he would just buy all of the Carbruns, and it had the most satisfying can open of all time, famously. It just just like explodes out of the can. Not any fizzing, but you can hear a Carbrun being opened up down the street.

Alex:

Where the hell do you get some Clarbrun, dude? I haven't even seen that outside of like northern Minnesota.

Luke:

Winona, I guess. Um this was almost 10 years ago now, because yikes.

Alex:

Uh wait, how does this can?

Luke:

Of Clarbrun?

Alex:

That you got right now. Dude, you've never had bubblers, brother? Oh, I thought you were saying you were drinking Klarbrun right now.

Luke:

Dude, it's from the makers of Klarbrun.

Alex:

Oh, interesting. I see. And if you came to this podcast for Black, I'm on the same page.

Luke:

We're gonna discard the Klarbrun and Bubbler talk to get to the real hand. See what I did there, dude? Dude, I'm so good at this. Nice. I'm so good at this now, dude. It's crazy.

Alex:

Oh, that's right. We played Bellatro. Belt Beltro. Bellatro. Listen. I don't know how to pronounce this correct, dude.

Luke:

I haven't heard anyone saying other than Bellatro, and I don't want to learn a new way.

Alex:

Uh it's an Italian word for joker. I might be understanding. Nice. But yes, that is uh the pronunciation of this game has definitely been discussed on the internet. Sure. And uh I think there is definitely a Bellatro camp that we clearly land in. What is the other one? Hmm. If you gotta look it up, is it even a camp? You know what I'm saying, dude? Oh, Balatro. That's saying the same thing another. That's stupid. Bellatro. Belatro. That's stupid. I don't know. Bellatro. You know what, man? If we can come, if we can come with Ocarina of Time Energy for like I don't know, for me, 37, 38 years, like I or I guess that game's not even that old. I'm older than the game.

Luke:

The point is. Did life really start until we played that game though?

Alex:

If you really have to be honest, the point is if we're Ocarina boys, we can be Bellatro boys. I'm pretty sure it's the way to say it. I'd have to ask an Italian bruh.

Luke:

Nope. No, you're allowed to do that thing, but no.

Alex:

Fair. But anyway, uh cool game, dude. It is cool. It is cool. Why this game? This game, I guess I kind of selected this one. It was both uh on both of our radars, hard to miss in the zeitgeist of gaming, but it kind of came out of nowhere back in 2024, 2023, end of 2023, something like that.

Luke:

Yeah, last year. Yeah. I remember um it's kind of funny. We were doing Minecraft Club, where we're paid to supervise uh little sweaty sixth graders as they scream and play Minecraft. Sure. And uh friend of the pod, sometimes Carter, was like, I'm super excited to play this Bellatro game, and he showed it to Tyler and I, and we were like, That looks um okay, I guess. And then it like I just remember that conversation. He said he'd been following it for like a decent amount of time, and he was excited for its release, and then it released, and it was like huge, and I was like, Oh, that game he was talking about that one time, and then I somehow made like a whole year where I just ignored it, even though it was pretty clearly gonna be a game I was gonna enjoy. I just ignored it until he bought it to me for me for Christmas, indeed, and then it was time, and then uh recently got put on the the cellular devices, or at least it's just become popular on the cell phones. Um side note, great cell phone game. So a lot of the buddies are playing it too, so it was a fun, it was a fun go.

Alex:

Did you end up springing for the cell phone uh version?

Luke:

No, but I probably I didn't, not because of the the ten dollars is actually incredibly affordable. I think it's cheaper on the phone than it is on like Steam.

Alex:

Uh $9.99 or something like that on at least on Android. Yeah. Uh so it's about the same.

Luke:

It runs really well on the phone and it crashes my Steam Deck out of nowhere. It always crashes and boots me out of the game. So uh that made me want to buy it on the phone, but I also knew like would all of my poops extend by 10 minutes because I'm too busy playing Bellatro. Would I perhaps miss some uh nice moment in my child's life as they're playing because I'm too busy trying to sa, you know, multitask Bellatro. So I decided against it, but it was tempting.

Alex:

Right on. Yeah, no, you you brought up like uh how we kind of sat on it. I think it was one of those games that like everybody was super into it. And it wasn't even that I was like trying to be super hipster or anything, be like, I'm too good for Bellatro. I think I was just like, I don't know if it's my time. And and so I I also like sat on it for about a year because this this game dropped in February on February 20th of 2024. I think it may have been an early access, but at this point I'm just making shit up. So, you know, podcasting.

Luke:

Well researched. Yep. I appreciate it.

Alex:

But it did, it totally exploded though. It's it kind of took over everything everybody was talking about, everybody is really into it. And I was like, you know, I just don't know if I need any crack cocaine in my life right now.

Luke:

Yeah, yeah. Backlog's already big, and then you see this like uh very addicting style game. And uh, I will be honest too, uh, the allure of poker didn't do anything for me, and if anything, it was more of a an inhibitor to me actually playing because I wasn't like craving any side of poker, and as we can get into later, like poker doesn't really play like this, isn't real poker by any means, it's kind of loosely the structure, but that kind of kept me away because I just couldn't really envision a world where that gameplay was super fun because I just kept getting stuck on the poker aspect of it.

Alex:

But that's created some complications for the for the game itself, too, and how it's uh living on the app stores and whatnot. But before we get too far, I suppose there's a good point just to kind of let the folks who maybe are not familiar with the game know what it is, right? So this is a a deck builder, would you say? Poker like almost a poker-like, roguelike deck builder.

Luke:

I wouldn't even say it as anything like poker is so loosely in the framework. Sure. Like if you know poker hands, poker hands are involved as a scoring system. So anything from a high card to pairs to a royal flush. And then it is a deck builder. Yeah, has deck building elements for sure, the way that you can add cards and do all that, yeah.

Alex:

Yeah, developed by a fellow that goes by local thunk and uh I believe has continued to keep his true identity under ramps, like besides like the gotta keep all that lattro money from the hose, dude. They're gonna be trying to be trying to have his baby soon. Right, because it's a it's a it's a one-man team, right? So it's kind of cool that um this was developed by just one person. I believe it came out of a COVID project. I mentioned poker, and you said not quite poker, and that makes sense in in truth. I guess some of the inspiration comes from a Cantonese card game called Big Two. I'm gonna say heard of it, dude. Have you? No, okay. Me neither. So like when I was like looking up some of this stuff, I I came across that and I was like, Oh, that's cool. Uh, but I yeah, I had no I I didn't really understand. I was like, oh word, all right.

Luke:

Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's a roguelike deck builder. Uh the scoring is structured around um basically poker hands plus multipliers. Those multipliers range in a variety of things, uh, gives you different targets, it adds some randomness to each run. Um and you have a store you visit in between your battles, similar to a lot of these type of battler roguelike games, and you just keep beating the little mini bosses until you get to the end, and then and then you defeat it, and then it feels really good. You ever beaten it?

Alex:

Yeah, one one time. One time. Oh my god. One time. Uh I mentioned crack cocaine, dude. Uh I knew I knew you would love this game, especially because it's kind of right up the alley.

Luke:

More of a weakness for these deals than you.

Alex:

Yeah. Yeah. No, I I mean I like them, but um, you know, for instance, like I knew that you poured, you know, hundreds and hundreds of hours into uh Slay, Slay the Spire. Not to say that these games are the same, they are not, uh, but they're similarities.

Luke:

Yeah, they have some through lines for sure. Uh Slay the Spire is better, but that's just my baby girl right there.

Alex:

Yeah, I I don't know. That's that's like we could spiral into that. Like, I think it's it's interesting, right? I think that this game, it's a game, clearly, but Slay like falls into more of your traditional like video game, I would say, where this has like very strong like tabletop card game that is a video game. I don't, you know, like there's no like when you when you mention like bosses, you don't like see an animated boss or like it's just another another hand, right?

Luke:

Yeah, and you know, you're tiptoeing around it. I'd say not on accent or to avoid anything, but I'd just say it's like very much more appealing for a non-gamer person than usual. So like I wouldn't have as much hesitation like our sister doesn't really play video games, but I can oddly enough like see her if you gave her like a 10 bucks to like buy this game, like she'd probably have fun. Sure. Learn it faster than like a slay the spire. Like, if I handed handed slay the spire to my wife, she'd be like, what the fuck? But uh she might get Blaccio after a few hands.

Alex:

I think it's interesting too, the way that it's rolled out. Like it doesn't do a ton of hand holding, like you can read you know the different things that your cars are doing. You mentioned earlier the you know, you've got your your typical uh deck of cards, so you got all your face cards, number cards, all that kind of stuff. The jokers play an interesting role in this game. So there's not just four jokers or two jokers or how many jokers come with your deck, but the jokers actually impact how your your scoring works, right? And uh, there's a ton of different things. Totally. And then you got your tarot, tarot cards, your planet cards, and your vouchers, and those all in turn have effects on your your hands as well and your point system. But you know, you can you can read how each of them affect your hand, but you're still it's still like a you're like testing it, at least the way that I played through it, it's like you test it out, you kind of like put it in there like, oh, okay, I see how this works a little bit. And then it's like you kind of build on you know, each that each run, you kind of build on your knowledge, and you're like, okay, because it's gonna be different every time, too, right? So you're like, oh, that did this for me this time, and then the next time you you jump in, it's gonna be slightly different because you're getting fully different cards, fully different hand. Uh, and you you start to like integrate things and it it changes your strategy and how you play. Um so it's interesting because it's not like here's how you play, it's kind of like you're playing now. Here's like this extra thing, figure it out, try and try and beat it.

Luke:

You can like if you put it down and you pick it back up in the middle of a run, it's a little disorienting because it can get kind of not necessarily dense, but kind of complex in a way as you go along your run, you're like, okay, I'm going for straights. I have this joker where a straight can be formed in only four cards instead of five, and then you're like, ooh, I run into that, and that boosts things up. Uh, but it's not like an overly like like I'm playing Elden Ring still, and like I'm trying to figure out systems sometimes, and I'm like, I have to do wet and then wet and then wet. Whereas this, it's like it's it's complex, but it's not overly intense and intricate and out of control, although it can be a tad bit disorienting. Right.

Alex:

I want to kind of set the table too, so folks, you probably if you if you haven't played this, you've picked up the fact that there's these cards in there. But to give you an idea of the visual layout, that's uh what I really love about it right off the bat is you are you you've got this CRT filter going on, right? So it's kind of got this old school look to it. Um a little bit fuzzy, the the corners and edges of the screen are rounded to give you that feel that you're you're playing this game on a oh dude. It's subtle. It's subtle but cool. It's subtle but cool. I mean, me being a person that like totally F F around with shaders and all that stuff to make my retro games like look retro, like I totally appreciated what was going on with the with the look of this game. Certainly has a gnarly aesthetic, but I guess I never pieced any of those puzzle pieces together. Yeah, check it out. Check it out next time you're playing, you'll you'll notice the CRT puzz. No. Uh and then the music too, man. Like the music's kind of fun, it's like pretty hypnotic, it's not a repeat. Uh I'm pretty sure. Like, I don't think it uh it's one of those things. Are you listening? You're you're probably playing on bed like volume 80%, like just vibing out, dropping away insane.

Luke:

Uh no, I keep it pretty low, except for when you get like a super sick hand, like on all the crazy multipliers going, like the sound of all your points going up is pretty orgasmic. So like I'll have to tickle up the noise a little bit just so it can be like and I'm just sitting there like you get the little flame thing going on the counter, that's when you know you're going bonkers, dude. It's sick, dude.

Alex:

Dude, this this game totally tickles the same part of the brain, like the lizard brain that uh a game like um like Vampire Survivors would.

Luke:

Yeah, I've almost bought Vampire Survivors again like 10 different times.

Alex:

Oh dog, um do you have that on your phone too?

Luke:

I did for the longest time, yeah. And then it was a bit too much, and then I had it on Game Pass when I had Game Pass last.

Alex:

Sure, sure, sure. Um man. Uh but yeah, so you know, same same brain tickle as vampire survivors, same tickle as uh slot machine.

Luke:

Yeah, just you know, hitting that like man, that really good itch that feels way too good to itch. Like a mosquito bite type, like oh, and your leg twitches a little bit. Yeah. When those numbers go crazy, you feel pretty great about it.

Alex:

So let's let's go over the different cards as that we mentioned earlier. So we got the Joker cards, provide unique effects that can significantly uh alter the gameplay dynamics. Tarot cards, what do those do?

Luke:

Uh well, they have a wide variety, same with the spectral cards, they can do different things, but mostly the tarot cards can uh which I read as tarot and I know that's wrong, but I refuse. It's alright.

Alex:

Throw it into the chasm, bro.

Luke:

Yeah, throw it right into the chasm. Um nice. The tarot cards, they like usually do something specific to your actual deck of cards, meaning like the jokers think of it being on the top bar of your screen and they like apply abilities or different rules to whatever you're doing, whereas your actual deck, what you're playing, is like the poker hands. So like you can put a multiplier on your king of hearts or make your ace of spades uh um like a lucky card, and like you can delete cards and things like that, and like destroy them. So that's what the tarot cards do. The planet cards increase how many points you get off of a scoring a specific hand, so you can upgrade your pair, meaning, like if you throw in a pair, it's worth this much more than usual. So if you cheese that you can have like a pair be worth way more than like a royal flush just by the way you're upgrading as you go along on that run.

Alex:

Planet cards are kind of what opened this game up for me. I was like, Yeah, did a whole bunch of runs and then I finally figured out how to use those correctly, and I was like, all right, now we're scoring some points.

Luke:

Or how about like I like the intricacy of even like with the jokers, they can give you multipliers both plus your malt and times your malt. So like putting your putting your time.

Alex:

There's some there's some math involved too to really make that work. That uh took me a while to learn some perm DOS.

Luke:

Yeah, you know, perm DOS. It's just the times you put that to the right because it's the last thing to get counted. So, like, oh that's why you said PEMDOS. I get it now. Shouts out to all my middle school math teacher friends. Um yes, this is how they should be teaching math, dude. What the fuck are they on? Right? Get some fuck are they doing? It's better than what they're playing at home, dude. I got 2K. I know what the casinos these children live in now. For sure. God I've never actually like considered how important an epilepsy warning is before a video game until I play fucking 2K, but that's a story for later. Um and then vouchers. Vouchers will do perks and that influence that they're how do you feel about vouchers? Uh I don't use them as much as the other ones. Sometimes if it's a really good one, like it increases the amount of hands you play or the amount of discards you have, or even how many cards you can hold in your hand.

Alex:

I'm glad you brought those up because we hadn't brought those up yet. But yeah.

Luke:

You get a certain amount of discards. There's the amount of play hands that you play. Discarding is life. I hate the jokers that like incentivize you not to discard because I just can't not search for the best hand and discard, but yeah. Yeah. Um, so it's a great, great game to play if you're like watching something in the background. Like if you're one of those Netflix watchers that just has it on, you need to get this game. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Alex:

Dude, I I do know what you mean. It's funny. The the majority of my time playing this game, though, has been like on the deck, the steamy D, playing with my Steamy D in bed. And then um, and then just being like having game choice paralysis and then um not being able to decide what to do, and then just being like, you know what, fuck it. And then uh it's a palette cleanser almost, yeah. Yeah, fire up, fire up Malatro, and then all of a sudden three hours have passed, and you're like, oh shit. Yeah, yeah.

Luke:

But you know, if your wife decides to re-watch Friends or something awful like that again, and you want to partake in Friends, you could just play Bilatro in the inside.

Alex:

Is this an example or a real life uh scenario?

Luke:

Uh I'm sure it's real life for somebody, but not here.

Alex:

Right on, right on. I think so. I mean, with all the different card variances, I also don't really use vouchers. The only other thing that I think is worth mentioning is that the setup, right? So the setup of the game, you and you unlock these over time as you win, right? So, like, or as you gain certain point amounts, I think. Um so you get to choose your deck at the beginning of the game. Yeah. Uh so you got like different they have different names, different colors. So like the blue deck does X and the yellow deck does Y, that kind of deal. Sure. Um, and that might set it up so that you have like one less hand per round or one less uh like just just various different things to like change up the flavor of of each run, right? And I'm under the understanding that you've what you've beat it with all the all the decks now?

Luke:

No, uh I beat it because I beat it with all the ones that unlock a new one. And then I've gotten to the point where I now have to beat it on like the big blind, little blind, like the different chip difficulty settings that you unlock when you beat it. So I've unlocked one of those because I beat it on the there's the base difficulty, and then there's the next one up. I've beaten it once there, so now I'm trying to beat it with the new deck on base difficulty because I just wanted to do that and it's fun. And you know, it's a roguelike, so like you gotta get used to whatever it is that that deck offers best. So it takes a while. I think it takes a few runs to understand the benefits. Um there's one that was super easy, it's like all of the it was like all hearts and spades. So like you could really synergize with flushes super effectively, and like that was a really easy one to beat. Um so there's stuff like that.

Alex:

Yeah, there's I mean it's fun, like it's there's so many different things, so many different variances of the game, ways you fight. I mean, you're basically trying to break the game to like get your points. You're trying to like break it to cheese things, and then uh you rack those points up and you eventually win. For me, there was a there's a joker that worked really well for me. I had my my malts all set up real nice and from different jokers like offering different types of malts, but there's one that was like I can't, and then they compound too. Some of the some of the jokers have compounding effects. So if you don't like if you don't use uh face card or whatever, uh it will like for every round, it'll compound the amount of multiplier for you. And then, you know, so you end up it's just and it also that's like interesting stuff because it'll make you like you know, we've mentioned like how it's poker hands, but once you start adding all these different things in there, you have to like like all of a sudden, like a pair of two, like you bring up earlier, is gonna be stronger than like a full house because you've added either a bunch of planet cards to it or you've got different malts that are like helping you out there.

Luke:

Your deck can even get so weird that you can have like uh I think Tyler got like a five of a kind flush or a six of a kind flush because he had like you know, so you can unlock really weird crazy combos if you're like getting into that aspect of it. It is funny when you're super dependent on one type of hand, and then when you're doing like an epic boss battle later on, like they simply just through chance, you just do not get any of the cards you need, and you're just so fucked because you can't use the one the one strategy you've built up to dominate with.

Alex:

And what is what is that called again? Uh for the for the boss hands? Uh like they added basically they've they nerfed like a whatever. Oh, that's what they that's called. Yeah, the boss blind.

Luke:

Small blind, lar blind, lar lar blind. Small blind, large blind, boss blind.

Alex:

Yes, right on that a few times. Jeez. And you can also skip the earlier runs, right? Like, what's that all about? I haven't even really gotten into that too much.

Luke:

I just played all now. Took me a little while to figure that out. Uh, you have the option to skip them, but you don't get the free thing. You get a thing, but you don't get access to the store in between battles. So like it's kind of a risk reward thing. Uh on the higher difficulty, you don't earn any money for the small blind. Yeah. So you end up skipping that one and just getting whatever the reward is a lot of times. Uh right. Sometimes you even like the the joker you get is you get a multiplier based on how many times that you've skipped blinds. So it's true. So you know the game, the replayability is pretty crazy. Like it's there's really a lot of stuff that I I I've played 30 hours and I honestly feel like I've discovered 15% of the game.

Alex:

Sure. And uh there's there's rumblings. I think local thunk has gone as far to say that there will eventually he doesn't he didn't like give a timeline or anything, but there will be like a there'll be like a version update um where he adds a whole bunch of of uh Joker cards or whatever. Well, he's gotta pay off all those baby mamas, you know. Yeah, presumably, presumably identity. Uh but yeah, this game, I mean, critically acclaimed, dude. We mentioned it came out on February 20th, 2024. We sat out for about a year, but a lot of people didn't, neither do the awards, folks. So they got the the Golden Joystick Award in 2024. Also, the game awards gave it the uh best in best indie, best debut indie, and uh best mobile game.

Luke:

All right, all seems fair. It was pretty crazy. Like people had the game of the year discussion, they're like, Can you really give it to this? And a lot of people were like, Yes, you should. And it wasn't a you know, I hadn't played it at the time, but it wasn't a crazy argument for people.

Alex:

It was pretty cool. Word. Uh so if you had to give this game how many jokers out of five, bro? And then who would you recommend to? We've teased it, but I'd love to know. Jokers, dude.

Luke:

I'm going a full four and a half jokers. I'm Homer Simpson the critic, food critic. I think I've made that joke, so I'm just gonna move on. But it's really addictive. Oh, uh Homer Simpson in an episode becomes a food critic, and everybody in the town gets morbidly obese and hates him because he's too positive about all the food. And uh and then someone makes fun of him, so he starts being like overly cruel. He's like, I give this four only four thumbs up. Um yeah, like a four and a half to a four. I think it's really cool. Um if there's like a real game.

Alex:

I would be subtracting points for the fact it crashes on you all the time. That's fucking sucks.

Luke:

Yeah. Um, and also sometimes you're playing the game, you're just like, ugh, I can't these fucking cards, and like I get this weird feeling where like I can't play it for a while. Like it gets not necessarily overwhelming or over I don't know what it is, but sometimes I just get like caught in a run and I'm like, I fucking hate this. So like for anyone who's like a big, big old video game player, I'd I'd be like, you haven't bought this yet, it's cheap, you're gonna like it, it's worth your time. And then surprisingly, there I would recommend this game to even like maybe someone who's like kind of gamer curious more so than like not full ungamer, but someone you know more casual, but someone who's played like a little bit because you're gonna need a little bit of tech. Like, I wouldn't really recommend this for mom and dad. They don't have the tech literacy to really enjoy it, but like someone slightly higher up than them. Sure, pretty wide audience, is what I'm getting at.

Alex:

Yeah. Uh rewinding slightly just uh to talk about that crashing thing again. I'm also the impression, you know, this one-man team, local thunk dude. When this went out there and people started to dig through like the code, uh that it was like apparently the code is super bloated, like it's not streamlined code, and like a lot of coding people were like, look at this shitty code. But it's like here's the deal. If it fucking works, it works. Like, who cares if it's bloated? So there's so there's that. It's not the cleanest code, and that's probably why it has a little bit of uh a problem on certain versions of the Steam Deck. But is that a Steam Deck problem or is that uh a blotcher problem? I'm not really sure. But well, you know what? I have a Steam Deck as well, and it didn't happen to me, but I know it happens to a lot of folks because I looked it up when you told me.

Luke:

Yeah, and I've done some of the solution things, and I don't know. It's uh it's a little bit of both, man.

Alex:

Indeed. I'm gonna give it five jokers though, or five celestial cards, or five terracards. Top ten of all time, dude. Nah, bro. But like I can't really, I can't really, aside from the fact that I'm gonna be able to do it. I'm gonna put my second four.

Luke:

I'm gonna full four flat.

Alex:

There we go. An eight out of four out of five. That's a really good ranking. I need to hold firm. See, I don't have any, I don't have any notes as a thing. I gotta give it a full five for especially with the type of game it is. Like, I mean, that's just it, you know. When you're rating anything, it's difficult. You put a five, you put like uh some fancy restaurant next to McDonald's, they all get rated in the same Google rating, dude. So it's that's just how it goes sometimes. But uh, but this is some really good McDonald's, bro. You know, this is high-end fast food, I'll give you that. Uh but that's just it. I think the only like, and it's not a knock, the thing is because it's the type of the game, type of game that it is, so you can't really knock it for this. I don't know we didn't mention this earlier, but a phenomenal card game would be uh shit. What we played. It's a deck builder a while back, uh, kind of got the this the creepy vibes to it. Slay the spire. No, no. Uh you know, like pull your teeth out and put them on the scale, that kind of shit.

Luke:

Oh god, yeah. Um there's like three games in one. Um totally blank. I don't know what that's called. Great podcasting right now. We did a whole episode on it. I know, I can see the art in my brain. I'm gonna pull it up. Inscription. Inscription.

Alex:

There we go. Great work, IT. Yeah. So inscription, dude. Like inscription is a deck builder where you've got like like a boss. It's a it's another game that's more video gamey. That's totally different. That one had a whole meta thing going to it too. That was cool. Indeed. So, but the thing is, is like so. I don't really oh, I bring that up though, because like inscription, like you're you're going somewhere. I think with this game, like you're you're playing to beat it, dude. It's like your candy crush, you know, like it's not really the it is about dopamine hits, there's no doubt about that.

Luke:

Or like even for streaming, too. Like, I've seen a lot of YouTube shorts of different streamers who are just like putting together crazy combos, and I'm like, I don't watch any streamers, but I'm sure if I did, I would have seen a lot of this game in those.

Alex:

Yeah, see whereas whereas Tetris is the goat. Same thing. You can't really beat it. But you can't beat this game, right? So then there's no, and that's not even a spoiler. That's just I mean, you beat it in the sense that you like reach a certain like spoil Tetris, dude.

Luke:

Or you meant I'm talking about this game.

Alex:

Or uh no, you're gonna be a big storyline spoil.

Luke:

It's just like not that I know of, at least.

Alex:

Um, you read you reach your point threshold, and you can even choose to keep playing indefinitely if you want.

Luke:

Yeah, you do it, you find your own fun in it. I mean, hitting different goals, the unlocking, it's part of the lizard brain continuum.

Alex:

But but I gotta give five, dude. I gotta give it a full send. That's crazy. Gotta give it a full send. And uh let me see. Uh as who's I I'm on board. Like, I think just about anybody, uh, your Candy Crush folk that need that dopamine, like they they're gonna love it. Like, honestly, I do think anybody can really figure out if they give it enough time. So, like, you know, even your moms, your pa's, but like, you know, I think it's anybody that's looking for some like lizard brain dopamine hits like kill some time.

Luke:

Like, you know, this isn't uh you're we re watching The Office for the seventh time and you just want it on in the background, you just throw throw that on and you got Bellatro. I mean, yeah, you know, you're watching The Bachelor like Alex does, and then you just play The Golden Bachelor. Only bro. Only the Golden Bachelor.

Alex:

Word. Well, that's it, man. Malatro. Uh, with that, let's take a little break. Come back with a side question. This month, Lo Five Gaming is unofficially brought to you in part by Slides. What do you know about slides, brother?

Luke:

Like at the park, or are we talking sandals?

Alex:

Oh shit. I was talking sandals, but you know, slides at the park are dope too. Sliding into DMs? I don't know. Internet like that, brother. Sliding into DMs, sliding down the park, slide. I'm talking for your feet, though, my man. I'm talking about. I'm a burke boy. Does that count as a slide? Hey man, you tell me.

Luke:

I'm sliding them line, but I feel I want to be like slides. There's not as much of a bougie connotation, so I don't know if I fit. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna include it.

Alex:

I'm gonna say burkest stocks are slides, brother. Okay, just you know, crunchy slides. Dude, I mean like elevated leather slides for sure.

Luke:

German engineered elevated leather slides.

Alex:

Indeed. They still go on your feet, they still got the same strap over the top. Maybe a little like I gotta bust mine out.

Luke:

We're in our Minnesota fake, fake spring second winter phase. That's why I'm bringing up.

Alex:

I keep I keep slides by the door year round, though, because I ain't trying to throw my shoes on all the time. I'll fuck I'm I'm wild, brother. I'll I'll like put on my slides and bring the trash out in the middle of the winter. Like maybe some snow gets on my sock, but I'm like, I don't want to put my shoes on.

Luke:

Yeah, you know, usually I agree, but with the boys and the boots and all their nonsense, our front door gets packed, so they get tucked away at some point. But I have been thinking about it specifically because uh going in and out of the house for the grill, my guy. Oh, yeah. See, that's what's getting getting good mileage on the grill already, so I'm very happy about that. Slides are perfect.

Alex:

Gotta bust out the slides, gotta bust out the perks. Uh, I recently purchased some new slides, new Nike slides. I'm uh I end up getting Nike. We don't have to get into why I'm not like shilling Nike out here is whatever. But when you got a size 15 put certain brands you gotta go with.

Luke:

Dude, the intro to slides is brutal, though. Like even the cheapy ones, breaking them in is like a process.

Alex:

This is true. I I'm learning that right now, relearning that because I've been rocking an old pair of slides since 2019. And the reason I got a new pair is because I'm like, okay, these old ones, you know, they still work, they haven't broken on me yet, but they look they look like they've uh they're on their last limb. A bit ratty.

Luke:

Um like I'm tired. Once it gets hot enough, I just hate wearing socks. Uh I prefer not to wear socks as it is. 100%. Um, so I'll wear my slides to work and then two stories here. One, if you are a teacher, specifically within the age range I am, if you wear sandals to work in the fall when it's still pretty hot, kids just don't bat an eye. But if you do it in the spring when they know you better, they're like, oh, who brought the dogs out? Woo woo woo woop woop. So there's that, but also I'm old now, so apparently one needs to lotion their toes, or else the your toe knuckles will get ashy and crusty. And uh you better believe I have no fucking time in my life. I like put lotion on it like two days in a row, and I was like, this is this is not worth it my time here. So I have the crusty.

Alex:

Look the KD of podcasting, KD of teaching.

Luke:

My crusty, my crusty ass toes. Uh, so I had a girl this year who just immediately saw that and was like, oh hell no. And then she just, you know, would come into my classroom every day and let everybody know how crusty my toes were.

Alex:

Dog, she does that again. You gotta pull up some clips of KD just playing ball and being like, this man don't care about his feet either.

Luke:

No, I just let it ride, dude. I'm like, hell yeah, they're crusty. I told it to my wife and she just laughed. We don't give a fuck. Yeah. I got no time to be lotioning toes. So uh the slides, you know, I'm I'm letting it all hang out, dude. Letting them dogs out. So I feel you. I can dig it, dude.

Alex:

I'm so excited that the Berkey boys right now. Officially slide weather again. Yeah, that's what's up. Unofficially brought to you. We ain't getting no money from slides, we're paying for slides, but that's what's true.

Luke:

I'd take Burke money, dude. I mean, I'd take anyone's money, but if they're like, I'm just gonna send you some burks, I'm like, shoot. All right. Although breaking in Burks is rough on the feet, dude.

Alex:

Yeah, rough. That's that's fair. That is that is the the fallback, but once they're broken in, might hell yeah. That's what's up.

Luke:

Now that we're sliding back into programming here, back from our unsanctioned sponsor. I'm on a roll here, dude. I'm so fucking good at this. What do you what do you been playing lately? Anything?

Alex:

I'll let you go, man. I re-listened to our last episode the other day, and I'm like, shit, like I'll let Luke go first. So I got some time at the end. He doesn't get answered.

Luke:

So last one I talked about, uh, I held off on talking about foundation, right? I talked about uh Prince of Persia. Okay. So Foundation, super happy about this. Uh I don't play a ton of early access games, but as you've been listening for a while, you'd know that I'm a I'm a big city builder guy. I really like to play different simulation games and city building games, and if I can get into it, it's like it's bad because I'll just get absolutely lost. But I bought the game like in 2001, maybe, or like really early on, and uh loved it, and then would just periodically come back to it and be like, whoa, they changed this up, oh they changed that up. So before launch, I had like 70 hours in it. And then it's pretty funny. Uh a few days before I thought it had launched because I saw like different people's stuff on the internet, but I think they were playing like an earlier, so like I put a good like decent amount of time in and had a pretty bustling thing going, and then I woke up the next day and they're like, here's the 1.0, and I didn't realize I was playing on like the final final version of the beta. So then the final final, like the some of the new changes that has a completely new cosmetic look, which I thought was an interesting choice, but still looks really good, looks really cool, plays really well. Um, and then just being in and like being part of the community, as far as seeing what longtime players like myself had to say about it, and then seeing what a bunch of noobs had to say about it, and then just the rush of different tips and fixes and things that came through in the public community, I thought was really cool. Um, so it is a gridless city builder where villagers follow like kind of organic paths, and those paths turn into roads more or less. And it's really chill. There's like a combat part of it where you send troops off to do missions, but other than that, like you're not defending against anything, you're not on like a huge like it can get pretty nitty-gritty and intricate with supply chains and making sure things are going right. Um, but it is very relaxing in a way, or at least passive, perhaps, is a better way to put it than relaxing, because I get like all hunched up close to my computer, like that meme you sent me the other day when I'm playing this game. So to call it relaxing is a little bit out of control. And the last thing I'll mention about it that I think is makes it unique is that um a lot of like the bigger buildings, so like you have these, you have like your regular stuff supply chains, but like you have like a monastery, like a military fort, and like the what I'll just call like the city administration, and then taverns, like those are all modular, so like you create and adjust sizes and pieces and stick things together. Um, which if you watch some gameplay, that's gonna make a whole lot more sense as far as like like your people need to go to a church, so you can build like a church and you have like a main hall and you need to attach like a bell tower. So, like, there's a creative component, like you can make things look really cool, and uh, I constantly want to comment on people's Reddit posts that we're not playing the same game because they can come up with the most beautiful creations, and mine looks dope, but nothing like that. So I love that game. It's uh I think it's the first time I've ever been on like a journey of an early access game through launch, like from so long ago, too. So I've been playing it almost four or five years. So to see it in an early state and then move all the way through its 1.0 launch, it was pretty, pretty gnar, dude. My little my little bro grew up, you know.

Alex:

Nice. Uh so you're playing that on your on your uh PC, or are you playing that on the Steam Deck?

Luke:

Uh PC the whole time, yeah, for the last few years. So I haven't tried it on the Steam Deck, but I don't see that being particularly fun due to the smaller screen and all that. Okay. So I got that. I'm still playing Elden Ring. Uh I've hated it and loved it about four more times since we last spoke.

Alex:

Nice.

Luke:

So um that's just a whole thing. I finally bought 2K. I'm trying to think of the last time I owned 2K. I've never owned 2K on the Xbox, I'm fairly certain. So, like at least two, three, four years since I've bought 2K, and uh man. What the hell has happened to society and culture? What is what is life, dude? I hate it. I mean, it's kind of fun. I'll play some more of it, but I hate it. Uh I hate what it's become. If we go back to my fond 2011 NBA 2K, it was the best one ever, and it's just been a it's been a slope downhill ever since. You don't like the gameplay itself? The gameplay proper? Gameplay itself is pretty good. Uh, there's some small things that I have grievances with, um, but for the most part, it's pretty good. Uh the difficulty is annoying as fuck. I've really struggled with finding something that feels fair where I'm not just winning all the time or losing all the time. Uh, it looks beautiful. Um it's cool, but every menu is a nightmare. The amount of times that it's slow because an ad wants to or like makes me go to the home screen from whatever screen I left off in just so it can feed me two new daily ads. Not trying to buy your virtual credit or whatever, like all that stuff. Everything is so cluttered because they're trying to pack so much fucking shit in the game. I feel like I'm in the worst casino having a bad time. Just and then once you get in the game, you're like, this feels good, and everything else is so clunky and like just bad interface.

Alex:

And like for so long, I just put my blinders on. I just put my blinders on and I go straight to it.

Luke:

We need literal blinders, it's like everything's neon and flashing, and like and I'm just like, What is oh my god, like I feel ancient. Like I need to take like I literally like when halftime shows up, you can't just skip halftime and it's like four different load screens. You know what I'm talking about? It's funny. Uh yeah, I guess I literally brown because I can't handle all of the different flashing lights that come in and off the screen. I'm like, just give me back to the simulation. It's so bad, dude. Uh but I zone out and I just press A a whole bunch until it skips through. It's so bad. Uh the gameplay is tight though. So buried deep, deep within this carcass of glut and just shame is a good game. Buried deep in there, and then Jesus Christ. Can't wait to whip you up. Oh, you know, you probably won't still, but we'll see. You'll just get me quick.

Alex:

You wanted to do this digitally today so that I couldn't beat you and do this wise. This is crack.

Luke:

I'm not ready yet. I gotta play as a team other than the wolves. Dog. Uh the hardest part is like remembering their like getting comfortable with their release points. Yes. So I can't imagine playing with a team for the first time. Uh I'm I do you turn off the overlays that like show the little arrow going up to the perfect point?

Alex:

Yeah, I turned that off right away.

Luke:

I don't even remember that being on in this version.

Alex:

Maybe I turned it off to like the first time.

Luke:

I thought I'd turn it off, but I it was just right there again, and then I hated being in the menus. Um someone needs to, we need you know, Elon Musk to get his chainsaw out to 2K and trim all this fat.

Alex:

You know what I mean? Are you ripping packs? You doing all that kind of crazy shit?

Luke:

Fuck no, dude. No, I just want to play as the Timberwolves. Even like the My Career thing, like I was instantly kind of annoyed and I was like, this should be a fun mode. I like already hate what they're trying to do with it. I'm like, just let me play as like they didn't let you get drafted by a team.

Alex:

Uh dude, I don't even mess with any of that stuff. I just go and I play my seasons.

Luke:

I know, but they're just like, what team do you want to play for? I'm like, bitch, I don't get to choose. That's not part of the fun. Like, oh, they don't uh there's no like draft. You're just like on whatever fucking team you want to be on. And I'm like, uh interesting. So foundation, dude. Love that game. Smaller dev team, probably like a double A game, or maybe indie. I don't really know. Uh super sick though. Love that. Super chill vibes. Just getting my getting my bread, getting my wheat to my to my windmill, to my breadsmith. You know, it's there you go. Then sell it at my markets. So yeah, what do you been playing?

Alex:

Man, this and that. I've been uh I think the last time that we talked, I was saying that I was about 20 hours deep into Pokemon Emerald. I played a few more hours of that, but uh I've shifted, I shifted over to Final Fantasy, uh, the original Final Fantasy, the remake of it, though, like a remaster of it that for the PSP. Um but it's still the original game. That's been a lot of fun. I probably poured about 14-ish hours into that, maybe a little less, I don't know for sure. Uh but similar to Pokemon, I've like it's just one of those things. It's very similar to what we're saying about uh both those games, very similar to what we're saying about Bellatro. It's just been great to be able to rock and roll those while something else is on or while I'm doing something else, a little multitask gaming. But I was really enjoying the the Final Fantasy, and I I got to a part of the game where things are still trucking along. Very, I mean, they both are like both Pokemon and the Final Fantasy, the original Final Fantasy are super similar in the sense that you've got uh your random encounters and the combat is similar. Um I would say I would I would venture to say that Final Fantasy, even though it's an older game, a little bit more complex, there's just different things you can do. You got a party, um that all do different stuff. But I mean, whatever, dude. Similar to Juxposa too, Pokemon. Yeah, well see, that's just it, I guess. Yeah, so maybe maybe they are the same. I don't know. Uh similar itch. Yeah, no, for sure. And but it's it's interesting. Like I reached a point where I was kind of trucking, trucking on that game, and then it's it's petered, it has petered out, but not like not that I'm not gonna return to it. It's just kind of both of them have been. I've actually gone back to Pokemon recently too and picked it up because they're pretty easy to pick up once you like get oriented over to where you are on the map, and you can like kind of continue the flow. But that's been a lot of fun, dude. Like I've never played that game. I hope that I push through to the end of it. I think I'm probably about a quarter to halfway through. Uh so my hope is I get that knocked out of the, you know, checked off the list in the next couple months here. Just keep it as a slow burn. But uh other than that, I too have played some 2K. I knew you picked it up, and I know I'm not supposed to talk about it on the pot anymore, but because you picked it up, that gives me an excuse. And I haven't been uh but I haven't been getting into it like I had in the past where I'm going through my seasons or whatever. You were you mentioned earlier you gotta play as different teams. I'm like, well, Luke's playing this game now, I'm gonna have to whoop them up. And I know that we're not gonna both play as a Timberwolves. So I'm just gonna play uh they have the bird like a play now, and then I play uh I just look at the games of the day, and then I tell Google to pick a random number between five, one and five, and then and then whatever number that is on the list of the games of the day, uh, I'll play as one of those two teams. Uh, and again, I just randomly choose the uh you know whatever it tells me. So I've been I've been brushing up my skills with other teams. Um, but it's tricky, man. Like you like you mentioned, like you can like I'm really good with the Timberwolves because I'm so comfortable with their release points and all that kind of stuff. You know, I was playing as the Pacers and I'm decent with the Pacers now, but the thing is, is like um Halliburton, dude, Halley should have a decent three-point, but I haven't got his release right, so like I put up bricks.

Luke:

Yeah, it's brutal. I feel bad. Nas Reed just flings the ball out of his hand, right? And like I cannot get it down. I mean, I hit him sometimes, especially when I turn down the difficulty finally. Uh just a side rant. Uh, if you have eight difficulty settings, that's inherently annoying because that means there's not a true middle, and I just don't understand who's in the room that's like, let's have eight.

Alex:

Are there sliders too? I can't remember.

Luke:

Probably there is, yeah. So I guess I could look up custom sliders, but I think I just gotta I just gotta play, shockingly. And then uh when I eventually get good enough where I can go on the next one up and not lose every single time, that'd be pretty sweet.

Alex:

Nice, yeah. Uh, but that's just a minor one for me. Another big one that's been a lot of fun is I end up getting this thing called a retro tink. And what that is, is it's this box, it's this fancy box that upscales uh retro hardware to a modern television, right? So basically, I have connected my PS2 and my Dreamcast to this retro tink. And soon I dude, I'm still on my eBay shit. I picked up a Nintendo Wii for 50 bucks.

Luke:

Sure.

Alex:

Uh I've got that coming soon, so that will be connected to it as well. But it's fun because I've got this, you know, a nice new TV that I got around Black Friday times. Uh, but the thing is, you know, I've got my little my little uh CRT in the background for no one because we are not gonna share that we don't like share out our video all the time. But anyways, like that that's the thing with my retro, my retro setup is like it can be really charming to play on like my small little retro like CRT TV. Uh but a lot of the times it's like, man, I'd much rather just be sitting on the couch like playing video games there, right? Or you know, taking advantage of this big screen. But that doesn't really make sense for your PS2, your 64, and all these other like systems. Because if you connect those, even if you well, first of all, there's uh the cable system set up. So you've got like component cables. If you're lucky, those are pretty nice. Otherwise, you've got like different they all use different cable setups, but when you connect those, you might need to get a converter, like a little dongle that will convert those into an HT HDMI signal. Um, if your TV, because TVs don't have like component endpoints anymore. Uh, but when it does that, like it just gets degraded so bad. You connect it, you connect a PS2 to a new TV, dude. It looks like garbage. But this retro tink makes it, so it looks absolutely stunning, dude. It's awesome. And it runs that and it also gets it going, so it runs at uh you know full 50 60 uh 60 frames per second, so it's running smooth as well. So you got like a nice picture, and then it's got all these profiles that you know, all these nerds have like figured out essentially shaders if you're familiar with shaders, but um these different profiles you can add to them to make uh to different flavors of different types of PVMs, different types of like CRTs, all these different uh you know, to get to get to recapture the look that you would get from from like an older television. And you can also just do pixel perfect, you know, and then uh so that's been super fun, dude. I've been playing a whole bunch of PS2 games, a little bit of Dreamcast, and uh and it's kind of uh is uh breathed a whole bunch of new life into especially PS2 uh for me because my Dreamcast library, not that big, but PS2 I got a lot of great games, so it's uh that's been super fun, man. Um big side closed shop talk val back of the shop, dude. Dude, I've been tinkering. You he made the joke last episode about uh motorcycle maintenance. Yeah, I was like, yeah, 100%, dude. I I love that stuff. Like uh just getting these things to work, setting things up, like uh it's kind of fun because I've reached the point with the with the with the PS2 where it's like it's all set up and it's rocking and rolling. I I gotta do some things right to clean up some file names and whatnot. But like a lot of times I'll spend a bunch of time like getting a device to work the way I want it to, and then I'm like, well, I don't really feel like playing anything on it right now, though. You know, yeah. But it's like, but I've gotten the I've gotten the point with my PS2 though, where it's like, this is dope, man. It like it looks, it's like running great, it's purring, and I can play these games. So I've been playing, uh I played a little bit of dark cloud up to the point where it got difficult. And then I was like, oh shit, this isn't the like I mean it's fine. Like I just wasn't like I wasn't quite ready to like pour a bunch of time in there, but I was like, all right, I'm good on this for now. But I've been playing, dude. I love uh the time capsule of old men's uh one because uh there's like a weird point where like two, three years, that's too soon.

Luke:

But once you get to a certain point, it's like the perfect deal where you remember the names or you're just like whoa, totally.

Alex:

So like uh yeah, and he got a fucking cannon on him, let me tell you.

Luke:

And he's fast to chuck it to Randy.

Alex:

Yep, no, for sure, dude. So like and then NFL 2K on the Dreamcast. I was playing a game of that like uh the other night. Um, just like loading up those uh the those Viking teams around that pocket were just so good. We didn't like win any fucking championships, but but but the teams are real nice. Uh so fun to play with, fun to play like that, dude. Uh playing some uh from like Need for Speed Underground 2, if you remember that one. Uh man, just like uh just having a ton of fun with it, man. Like, and it's uh I'm excited to show you the next time you come through because like it's like I said, it's like it's breathing a whole bunch of new life into my PS2. Um, and it's been it's been fun to play.

Luke:

I'll play Lord of the Rings Two Towers, dude.

Alex:

Got that game, and it can be done.

Luke:

It's the only the only one.

Alex:

Word. And what I think that's good, man. I think that's good. I think that's what I got going for side quests. Still reading, still reading books. Nice, which is nice. Nice. But with that, dude, and with all you listening, thank you. Thank you, brother. Thank you for listening, folks. Uh head to low5gaming.com. Click on that Discord invoit, invite invite. And you are to our Discord. You are invited to our Discord. Get on over there or follow us on the socials, do whatever. Just keep on listening to us. Do whatever you want. I don't give a shit. Uh well, I kind of care. Edgy. I care that you're happy. Stay happy. And if you're not happy, here's a big virtual hug for y'all.

Luke:

All right.

Alex:

All right, man. Take it easy. Peace. Get a haircut, you hippie. Dude, I fucking wish.

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Alex

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Luke

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