Balatro is nothing short of a gaming phonemenon, mashing up poker with roguelite elements to create a game that’s been wildly successful both commercially and critically.
Being a relatively simple game, it’s perhaps no surprise that homebrew devs have been attempting to convert Balatro to retro hardware formats. We recently reported on an in-progress Commodore 64 version of Balatro, which is actually seeking official status. And now, an enterprising developer by the name of Haynster has created a homebrew version of Balatro for the Nintendo DS.
While the Nintendo DS may seem like the perfect home for Balatro given the game’s success on mobile platforms, the Nintendo DS port of Balatro is missing some elements from the original game. Haynster describes Nintendo DS Balatro’s limitations as follows: “The game lacks music, different decks, and only has 12 Boss Blinds and 15 Jokers. As well as the system for finding what the current hand played is can’t take hands that aren’t the amount of cards that the hand should be, so say in Balatro you have a pair and 3 other random cards, in the port the game wouldn’t recognize that as a pair.”
Nonetheless, the Nintendo DS port of Balatro is still a substantial feat. To play it on your DS you’ll obviously need a flash card. You can find the ROM and full instructions on how to install it on the game’s GitHub page.