There’s this Youtube video (SHOCKING, I know) about “The Only Impossible Seed in Balatro*.” (49 minutes) The asterisk is their way of saying, “It’s not really impossible, but that wouldn’t have nearly as much impact as a title.” Yeah, unfair.
The video is interesting, if you sift through it, for an interesting fact: a bug in Balatro’s seed-based randomness generation code sometimes produces a situation where one of its many number sources will get bugged, and produce the same number over and over again. This is the cause of the now-infamous seeds where, if you’re playing the Erratic Deck, all your cards end up as the 10 of Spades, as well as seeds that affect which cards you draw, and one where all the Jokers generated are Rare. The video is most interesting, I think, for describing that mechanism, and that is why it is offered here:
To get to the meat, it turns out there is GitHub out there that explains much about these bugged seeds, here.
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
Our own Josh Bycer isn’t the only source of indie recap videos out there. Nintendo themselves released a new Indie World video yesterday with a number of new games listed, as well as an upcoming free update to one of my favorites, Little Kitty Big City. (I interviewed its creators for Game Developer some months ago!) Here’s the video (15 minutes):
The biggest surprise is, at the end, the news that both Caves of Qud and UFO 50 are coming to the Switch platforms at last! UFO 50 is out now! Please forgive my breach of decorum when I say, yippie, and besides that, wahoo. Thank you. (sips tea)
Founder of Digital Eel and friend of the blog Rich Carlson sent word that they’ve released a number of albums collecting their music on Bandcamp! I’m not much of a music-knower, admittedly, but the songs on their games always stuck in my ear, and I think there’s a good chance they’ll stick in yours too!
The Midway Sessions: I’m fondly recalling MIDI, the dawn of digital audio, the Macintosh, Windows for Workgroups, the Pentium, DAT, Mark of the Unicorn, Windows 95, the Proteus, Sound Canvas, Cakewalk, the Roland D-50, the Kurzweil K2000, the Roland RAP-10…. It was an astonishing, revved-up and magical era in music; we were spoiled with innovations. And this was when, at a modest studio in an industrial park in Midway near St. Paul, Minnesota, the music-making period that I call the Midway Sessions occurred.
The Midway Sessions: Short Stack EP: These three tunes were recorded at the same time and place, and were rescued, last minute, just after the Midway Sessions compilation was released. Note that most of the music on the Midway Sessions album as well this EP was created for commercial purposes but, for one reason or another, were never used.
Hidden Cookies: This final installment of the “Midway Sessions” features a mix of newly uncovered tracks and original versions, rescued from the vault, dusted off and revived using old tyme tools and methods.
Sea of Stars: The Symphonic Score (Evelyn Sykes): In 2015, indie game makers Digital Eel (including yours truly) decided they (we) wanted fancy theme music, like the Star Trek TOS theme, for their (our) third space game, Infinite Space III: Sea of Stars. Enter UK composer, Evelyn Sykes, an instrumentalist, recordist and creator of music for radio dramas, videos, films, and live performances.
The Weird Musical World of Digital Eel: This compilation offers a wholly unique and eclectic mix of musical and music-like material from nearly 15 years of Digital Eel games. […] These “suites” feature a diverse collection of sounds and mayhem from Plasmaworm, Dr. Blob’s Organism, Big Box of Blox, Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space, Brainpipe: A Plunge to Unhumanity, Data Jammers: FastForward, and Infinite Space III: Sea of Stars.
Plasmaworm: This album contains the level music from the 2001 Cheapass Games/Digital Eel computer game, Plasmaworm. […] Out of context (and in, for that matter) many of these pieces–extended loops really–are rather hypnotic and trancy, so get comfy and enjoy!
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
This is kind of self-promotion, but it’s not just self-promotion as you can get tons of books by other people this way, including 10 volumes of Game Dev Stories from David Craddock, twelve books from Hardcore Gaming 101, four from Andrea Contato, and a couple from Dean Takahashi, as well as several other people, including, well, moi. It’s $35 for 66 books! I even threw in the two volumes of Someone Set Up Us The Rom as an extra, even though I don’t get anything out of it. I care that much about this bundle’s success.
No one gets rich from these bundles. The days when you could offer a ton of content at a steep discount and get thousands of purchases are long gone. But cash-strapped readers looking for a lot of info, if they can scrape up just $35, can get an amazing deal that will keep them occupied for a long time. I really think you’ll want to jump on this one, if you’re able.
I’ve been involved with these bundles for around a decade now. Some of the books I’ve contributed I’ve put up for sale on itch.io, but some I haven’t. The original version of We Love Mystery Dungeon is in it, which I’ve just taken down from itch.io due to its forthcoming expanded print edition through Limited Run, which is one of those sad but necessary things that has to be done when you sign a publishing contract, so this will probably be the last place you can buy the original version. By the way, I hope you’ll consider the new edition: it’s got added material on last year’s Shiren 6, a.k.a. The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island, and a whole lot on the whole Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series.
I know I’ve made a few of these self-promotional posts lately, mostly over the Loadstar collection and related topics. I’ve always been anxious about spreading the word about my projects, paid or otherwise. I’ve seen so many people who seem shameless about tooting their respective horns, but it’s kind of necessary, I guess, to be seen through the crowd.
Well there it is. There’s 15 days left in the bundle, so you have a bit of time left to make your decision. Please have a look.
This is part 1 of my (Josh Bycer’s) coverage of Turn-Based Thursday Fest from June 2025. This part features the games I received press keys to cover, the following parts will be demos.
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
I’d like to point out that Chipwits is a game we’ve covered here before!
In other news… itch.io has come under a firestorm over the past couple of days over their delisting a whole bunch of games that covered adult subjects because of pressure from their payment processors. As it turns out, those processors themselves have been targeted by a campaign from right-wing “Christian” organization Collective Shout. I have tried to prioritize links to itch.io, and even distribute software and books through that site, but now I’m going to have to think hard about alternatives. PCGamer has a good overview of the situation.
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
Balatro is still a thing, and a major update with lots of new jokers is due soon, but until then you might tide yourself over with an online multiplayer mod, available here for PC players.
Each player plays their own independent game of Balatro with the same seed, but when you reach a boss blind after the first one, you don’t play against one of Balatro’s many built-in bosses, but instead you try to beat the other player’s score at that same round. You’re told what their score is in the boss battle (if they’re playing it or have already finished it), but aren’t given other information like which jokers they have or their deck composition. Instead of the usual instant-lose scenario you get a limited number of lives. If you lose but still have a life left, you get some consolation money and get to keep playing. The last player remaining wins.
There are a few other changes, such as a handful of removed jokers, but also some new ones that take special advantage of the format. One unique aspect to multiplayer is, if you’re both in the Boss Blind and your opponent finishes their round and you already have a higher score, you immediately win the round at that point and don’t play your remaining hands. This can be bad (you might not get to use some money-earning jokers, scaling jokers don’t trigger and seals don’t get the chance to work) or good (you get all the money from the hands that round, and you might save glass cards from being broken).
