Game news “A few weeks of vacation to lose” He thought he would create a fun little project but his game got everyone hooked: he has just won 2 prestigious awards!
Published on 11/24/2024 at 8:50 p.m.
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It is from small ideas that big projects are born, and if this developer had not yet understood it, he is now certain of it. While he thought he would spend a few weeks developing a little game for his friends, he ended up dedicating 3 years of his life to it before winning several awards at the Golden Joystick Awards…
The big winners of the Golden Joystick Awards 2024
The ceremony of Golden Joystick Awards 2024 took place a few days ago, and the most popular games were rewarded in around twenty categories. Some have won awards related to the quality of the audio design or soundtrack, such as Astro Bot et Final Fantasy VII Rebirthothers have been praised for their visual design, like Black Myth : Wukongand some got their hands on several statuettes, notably Helldivers II for the quality of the multiplayer, the trailers, and finally being recognized as game of the year on consoles.
On the independent games side, it's the excellent Another Crab’s Treasure which won the award for Best Self-Published Indie Game. Very good news for this Souls-like under the ocean, but nothing surprising given its quality. What is surprising, or at least for its creator, is the winner of the best independent game (not self-published, therefore) and the discovery prize, which is none other than Balatrothe card game developed by LocalThunk and published by Playstack.
The most surprised is the creator
It was in a message on Twitter (or LocalThunk spoke about the Golden Joystick Awardsshowing the surprise caused by his victory. Indeed, LocalThunk began to develop Balatro 3 years ago, with the sole aim of creating a nice little game to share with friends. The developer thought that this project would only occupy the few weeks of vacation he had given himself, but that is not the case: 2 years later, LocalThunk left his profession to devote himself fully to the development of Balatro.
Almost exactly 3 years ago, I started creating a weird card game on my laptop because I had a few weeks of vacation to spare, and I thought it would be a fun little project for me and my friends.
I don't know how to describe how absurd this all seems!
In April 2024, about a year after leaving his job, LocalThunk was able to share Balatro with the whole world, and the rather particular card game has met with great success, whether on Steam or on consoles. Its popularity was such that it was ported to mobile a few months after its release, reaching 1st place in the App Store's most popular games ranking of the day. And it is to Golden Joystick Awards 2024 what Balatro was crowned best independent game against very popular titles like Animal Well, Lorelei and the Laser Eyesor even The Valiant Little Page. A great success for LocalThunk !
