Legendary joker ports Balatro to the 44-millimeter screen of an Apple Watch, calls it 'Wee Balatro'
We know you can play Doom just about anywhere, but the question is, do you really want to? No, you don't. What you do want to play everywhere is Balatro, and you can since it runs great on Steam Deck and, more recently, on mobile phones.
But what if you're stuck in a social situation where pulling out your phone to tap jokers and rack up mults would be considered rude, like a wedding? If only you could pretend to be glancing at your watch (slightly less rude to do in social situations than pulling out a gaming console), but you're not really checking the time, you're playing a few quick antes of our favorite magic poker game.
That's exactly what one legendary joker just made possible, because they went and ported Balatro to an Apple Watch and named it "Wee Balatro." Yes, it sounds ridiculous to play Balatro on a screen a mere 44 millimeters across, but it really does work! Balatro fan Coktoco published the results of their meticulous and miraculous porting work over on Reddit, and it's amazing.
Coktoco begins by stating they have "no intention of damaging, violating or infringing upon" developer LocalThunk or publisher Playstack's copyright, describing Wee Balatro as "a fan project, created so I can express my passion for this game…" They also admit they weren't able to port the entire game of Balatro, though this Wee version contains "17 working jokers, every planet card along with secret planets, working shop, working core gameplay with ability to move jokers around, sell them, etc."
Wee Balatro was achieved using the programming language Swift, of which Coktoco says "Up until two weeks ago, I had no prior experience with programming"—which makes this ridiculous feat even more impressive.
"The whole concept revolves around utilizing the Apple Watch crown as a specialized scrollbar that allows you to quickly and swiftly scroll through all of your cards in hand!" Coktoco says. "Naturally, you just can’t fit effectively 8 or more cards on the Apple Watch screen, so this idea was the best I came up with. And it works beautifully." The shop you visit between rounds has been redesigned to contain 2 jokers and 1 planet card, and while there aren't packs to open, you can reroll the store to refresh your choices.
It does look pretty impressive on that itty bitty screen. It's Balatro, for sure, but it's compact and compressed—and quite obviously a pain in the butt to play on such a tiny device. But Wee Balatro looks like it retains all that delicious vanilla Balatro style, even though the wee little assets are all original.
Coktoco wraps up by showing Wee Balatro in action in a few videos, and hopes to share it with others via Github someday, provided LocalThunk and Playstack give it their blessing. You can check out Coktoco's full Reddit post on Wee Balatro here, and visit their personal website here.