Since sometime in the fall of last year, I’ve been playing Balatro fairly regularly. When I first started it, I thought I’d only be sticking around until I’d gotten a few wins on the highest difficulty. Yet, here I am still playing months later. It turns out that just squeaking out a few wins isn’t enough for this one. No, instead this is one of the few of games where nothing short of mastery will do. The thing is though, seeking mastery makes for a whole different ballgame.

Most games have at least two levels to them. There’s the surface level, where you just work your way through the basic flow of the game and just kind of enjoy the content, and then there’s the mechanical level. Digging into the mechanical level involves learning how the game actually works and how best to use each of its functions to your greatest advantage. Diving down into this level isn’t exactly easy though, as it requires a shift in how you play the game.

What does that shift look like, though? Well, in the case of Balatro, that depends on your goals. If you’re trying to get wins on high difficulties, then it’s about becoming able to consistently scale up your score quickly and work around the different difficulty mod- ifiers. If you’re going for very long, ultra-high scoring runs, however, then your goal shifts to prioritizing getting money and deck adjustment cards over everything else.

Both approaches require play that’s very different from the kind you’d use on normal, low-difficulty runs. It’s almost as if you’re playing a very different game depending on what you’re trying to do. Games like Dead Cells and Returnal are the same in this sense, with high-level play requiring much more knowledge and a more specialized skillset for success. Actually, I suppose this is true for most games, not just the roguelikes I’ve singled out here.

E-sports exist because of how different and impressive high level play is in games like Apex Legends and Fortnite. Master-level Tetris looks nothing like the game we’re all fa- miliar with, and then there are all the insane things coming out of the speedrunning sector. To seek mastery of a game (in any of its forms) is to progressively transform how you play it until your methods look almost nothing like normal play. It’s a fascinating process unique to each and every game, and it’s always fun to seek out (even if you never actually get there).

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What games do enjoy watching people play at a high level? Are there any game’s you’ve wanted to master? Did you actually manage it?

Image from the Steam page