As Thirion showed me the ropes, he explained that his north star for the project is Tetris. He’s aiming to make an arcade-style puzzle game that has the same kind of entrancing flow state.

Tetris is one of the most famous puzzle games ... Q*bert: Rebooted gives this arcade game character a new lease of life, as his mind-boggling puzzles are now available to solve on your mobile ...

This puts Balatro in the distinguished company of other arcade-style games you can't actually hit the "end" of when playing an endless mode because the score just keeps going on. Tetris ...

Maybe it’s just a touch too clever. Playing it brought me back to Loot River, another neat indie that turned Tetris into a roguelike. That game’s tetromino hook wound up feeling more like a ...