Talk:Balatro

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 8 October 2024 and 23 October 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Grpera16 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Grpera16 (talk) 21:27, 9 October 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

Here In ancient Rome, a balatro (/ˈbɑːlɑːtroʊ/ BAH-lah-troh) was a professional jester or buffoon.[4] Balatrones were paid for their jests, and the tables of the wealthy were generally open to them for the sake of the amusement they afforded.[5 Kaukênteo (talk) 12:46, 20 November 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

WP is not a dictionary, it is only sufficient to point out that LocalThunk chose a word related to jesters for the game. Masem (t) 12:58, 20 November 2024 (UTC) [reply ]

Local Thunk released the full timeline of the production of Balatro.I think it is a useful source, especially for the "Production" section.

https://localthunk.com/blog/balatro-timeline-3aarh Yoshiman6464 ^♫🥚 22:53, 13 March 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

See the refideas, and there has been lots of third party RSes that have commented on the timeline. I plan to try to add it in over weekend. Masem (t) 23:07, 13 March 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

Have you added this yet? I Forgot Tbh (talk) 04:44, 31 May 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

The current version of the article contains the following excerpt:

"Balatro was programmed in Lua with the Löve game framework. LocalThunk's pseudonym derives from Löve's way of declaring variables, "Local", and a common variable name in his partner's projects, "Thunk"."

This lists a source to an interview by the GQ magazine, which contains the following excerpt:

"Where does the pseudonym come from?

A few years ago my partner was learning this statistical language called R, and she was asking me about variable names. She said, ‘Hey, how do you name your variables?’ I have a computer science degree and I started oversharing. She interrupted me and was like, ‘I like to call my variables Thunk.’ And I thought that was just the funniest thing. The language I wrote the game in is called Löve, and the way you declare a variable in Löve is with the word ‘Local’. So, LocalThunk. It’s in my code in some places as well."

Here, LocalThunk is seen deliberately oversimplifying a concept; "Löve" is not a programing language, its a framework for Lua. The "local" syntax is part of Lua, and is therefore also used in Löve, and it is responsible for declaring that a variable is local as opposed to a default global variable. LocalThunk did not explain this in the aforementioned interview because none of it mattered as for the reason behind the pseudonym, but I do believe this misconception should not also be mentioned in this article. My attempt to rectify this error was reverted, so rather than beginning an edit war, i figured it was more prudent to post it here and have the concept debated. I'm new to all this wiki thing. ThaNook (talk) 01:13, 18 April 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

This is all original research, from the stance of where LocalThunk pulled the name. It may be 100% true that its really from Lua, but the sources don't represent it like that, so we should not be inserting our expertise to make this a different claim. Masem (t) 01:24, 18 April 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

@Masem The rest of your removals are fair but it looks quite messy to me without headers, maybe we could replace Tarot and Spectral cards and Planet cards with just one Consumable cards header? actualcreature (talk) 13:55, 1 June 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

When you only have one paragraph for each header, that's likely a good sign you don't need the headers (see MOS:OVERSECTION). We're already getting into too much detail on the gameplay section Masem (t) 14:15, 1 June 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

• ... that the mobile version of the 2024 video game Balatro was predicted to reduce humankind's activity by 25%?

• ALT1: ... that the 2024 video game Balatro is possibly the most addictive thing ever created? Source: ^[2]
• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Lynn Arnold
• Comment:

Lankyant (talk) 22:13, 6 June 2026 (UTC).[reply ]

• General eligibility:
• New enough: Yes
• Long enough: Yes
• Other problems: Yes

Policy compliance:

• Adequate sourcing: Yes
• Neutral: Yes
• Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing: Yes
• Other problems: Yes

Hook eligibility:

• Cited: Yes
• Interesting: No - n
• Other problems: No - n

Overall: @Lankyant: Article was promoted to GA status today and QPQ is met. A brief look over the article shows no major issues. However, I cannot approve either of the hooks. The first one is a line from Charlie Brooker, a screenwriter and not a research, so it would be misleading. The second one is not too interesting. I would offer a new hook for you, but reviewers can't do that. The development section does have several sentences that would work as great hooks. Jon698 (talk) 04:42, 7 June 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

Jon698 + The article shouldn't be promoted to GA since it was reviewed poorly and the article does not look good in shape. 🍕BP!🍕 (🔔) 08:05, 7 June 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

@Boneless Pizza!: Thanks for catching that. The user who reviewed this article basically auto-approved it and only has around 200 edits too. Jon698 (talk) 08:10, 7 June 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

• Placing on hold pending the outcome of this article's GA reassessment. Dclemens1971 (talk) 16:08, 9 June 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result pending

Multiple citation needed templates, errors in reference formatting such as Reference 34, and material not verified in sourcing like References 31 and 91 Jon698 (talk) 09:19, 7 June 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

Pulling from Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations section Jon698 (talk) 09:20, 7 June 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

I looked at some of the sources reference 31 claims that the soundtrack was released in March 2023. However, it does not state that in the March 2023 section nor can I find that in any other section. Jon698 (talk) 09:20, 7 June 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

There are also errors in the references themselves. Reference 34 says that it is the Wall Street Journal, but clicking on it takes you to Bloomberg. Jon698 (talk) 09:20, 7 June 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

Reference 91 does support "Within eight hours of release, the game had made over US1ドル million in gross revenue" and instead states that the game sold over one million copies across a month instead. Jon698 (talk) 09:20, 7 June 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

I blindly clicked on ten links in the References section and found two major errors and one formatting error. Jon698 (talk) 09:23, 7 June 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

To be honest, this was my first time reviewing a GAN so all of these issues went over my head Monathephantom (talk) 12:03, 7 June 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

There are also cases of refbombing, usage of unreliable sources, and the entire reception section has to be rewritten. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 10:29, 7 June 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

In that case, delist. 🍕BP!🍕 (🔔) 10:37, 7 June 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

I'd suggest we wait a bit for the user who brought the article to GA status to respond. If no changes are made to the article, then we can talk about delisting. Vacant0 (talk • contribs) 10:52, 7 June 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

will look into them later today. Cheers all Lankyant (talk) 15:46, 7 June 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

If Balatro is delisted you can nominate it for GA again and I will personally be the GA reviewer. I will give you a full and well-done review that will go over the entire article with a fine-tooth comb. Just notify me when you do nominate it again. Jon698 (talk) 01:52, 8 June 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

Delist. This was a checkmark review by a first-time reviewer whose account is three weeks old. The review missed several things that should have resulted failure, including the existence of maintenance tags that warrant a quickfail. The review is useless and basically needs to be completely redone. As a result, the article should be delisted and can be reviewed again once the nominator has a chance to fix the issues. Dclemens1971 (talk) 18:42, 7 June 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

Delist per Dclemens. The review was not adequate, and it is better worth our time to delist now so that the nominator can fix these issues and bring it back to the queue. toby ^{in solidarity} 20:28, 7 June 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

Delist - not an adequate review and there are clearly issues with the article still. -- Zoo Blazer 03:03, 8 June 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

There is normally a two-week window for a GAR to remain open for input, unless the response is so overwhelming as to justify closing early (WP:SNOWCLOSE). Bgsu98 (Talk) 20:09, 9 June 2026 (UTC) [reply ]

• Good article reassessment nominees
• Wikipedia good articles
• Video games good articles
• GA-Class video game articles
• Mid-importance video game articles
• GA-Class indie game articles
• Indie video game task force articles
• WikiProject Video games articles
• Articles that have been nominated for Did you know