I friggin' love Balatro. I've put an embarrassing number of hours into it. I also like to make games for the Nintendo E-Reader. The E-Reader was a peripheral for the Game Boy Advance that let you load mini games and "DLC" by scanning cards into it.

A while back, I made this mock up screenshot of what Balatro might look like on the E-Reader.

Oh, and then there is the problem of drawing decimal numbers to the screen. The E-Reader's DrawNumber functions work with whole numbers only ...

Make no doubt about it, decimal numbers are a big hurdle in making a Balatro demake. If I were to actually make this game, I'd probably choose the fixed point approach for this problem.

Just make a real GBA game?

Why do this on the E-Reader if it is so limited? No other reason than I really like the device and have a soft spot for it. If the demake was instead made as a full fledged GBA game on a cartridge, it'd have a bit more breathing room to work through these issues. Many limitations would remain though, like the 240x160 screen and decimal numbers. The GBA can work with 128 sprites, which is better than the 56 of the E-Reader, but still pretty limiting. My hunch is doing this as a proper GBA game would only make it a little bit easier.

Anyway ... will I release the prototype?

No, I won't. At least, not without LocalThunk's approval. This was just for fun, and I made it entirely on my own. Balatro is an excellent game, so I don't want to cause it any harm (or at least surprise) by releasing a demake of it, even if it's just a tiny little prototype. You really aren't missing anything, everything that is possible in the prototype is shown in the video. Oh, the prototype can also sort the cards by rank or suit. Yup, that's the entirety of it.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading! I have more posts about the E-Reader and Balatro if you want more.

And if you read this far, checkout https://retrodotcards.com, my E-Reader site. I will be selling a pack of new games starting July 27th!