Balatro solo developer LocalThunk clearly takes his responsibility as the defacto champion of the indie genre seriously; his response to his own game receiving five nominations at The Game Awards is to simply point you toward other indies.
LocalThunk has in numerous instances used his considerable platform to prop up what he views as underappreciated indie games. When Balatro was nominated for three Golden Joystick awards, he used that moment to promote the indie RPG Arco, which has excellent Steam reviews but hasn’t reached anywhere near the success of Balatro. And during last month’s Steam Next Fest demo blitz, he spotlighted the indie roguelike Ballionaire and the deckbuilding tactics game StarVaders.
In a thoughtful Reddit post reacting to Balatro’s nominations at The Game Awards, LocalThunk took the time to thank his community of players and raise some awareness about the headwinds indie developers face simply trying to stand out from the crowd.
I feel uncomfortable treating the nominations and awards for Balatro as ‘my’ awards or nominations because I feel like my game just happens to be the current face of this beautiful and passionate corner of the industry,” he said. “I just happen to be the lucky one to be propped up.”
Doing his part to help bring attention to his favorite indies and their developers, LocalThunk then listed out his favorite games of the year that have either launched or have demos out, and which have not been considered at The Game Awards. Those include the aforementioned Arco, Ballionaire, and StarVaders, as well as the roguelite space shooter Nova Drift, the Metroidvania Animal Well, the decidedly Balatro-like deckbuilder Dungeons and Degenerate Gamblers, and the roguelike dungeon crawler Rack and Slay.
“Please give these games a try, a wishlist, gift them to a friend,” LocalThunk said. “They are great games that I have played a lot in 2024 made by great people!”