Legendary joker ports Balatro to the 44-millimeter screen of an Apple Watch, calls it 'Wee Balatro'

GamesCard GameBalatroLegendary joker ports Balatro to the 44-millimeter screen of an Apple Watch, calls it ‘Wee Balatro’When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Albert Winiarski)

Balatro being played on an Apple Watch

We know you canplay Doom just about anywhere, but the question is, do you really want to? No, you don’t. What youdowant to play everywhere isBalatro, 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 workover on Reddit, and it’s amazing.

Wee Balatro was achieved using the programming language Swift, which Coktoco says they only started using a couple of weeks ago—making this 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.

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