Balatro can run Doom – or can it?

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Balatro can run Doom – or can it?“Literally nobody asked for it, but…”

“Literally nobody asked for it, but…”

Image credit:Playstack/UwUDev

Doom being played on a modded Balatro.

Chaotic poker-themedroguelikedeckbuilderBalatroquickly captured hearts and frazzled minds when it released earlier this year. However, nowhere in Katharine’s (RPS in peace)reviewdoes it address the one eternal issue:can it run Doom?Yes, according to reddit user UwUDev, whoshared their prototypefor how the seminal FPS could be played within the confines of a comedy poker game. The answer, apparently, is to just turn a big pile of Joker cards into portions of a video screen. A simple solution, though one that quickly caught theapproving attentionof Balatro dev LocalThunk.Thus spake UwUDev: “It’s super laggy and I often have big lag spikes but it works. I’ll see later if I can optimize it because it’s really unplayable x)”. Wait, if the creator says it’s unplayable then can we truly say Doom is running? Is this a ‘minimum 30fps or jog on’ situation or do we lower our standards considering someone got it working on ajailbroken tractor?After some initial umming, I think I’d fall into the “lower our standards” camp – surely Doom does not need to actually becomfortableto play for official Can It Run Doom certification, as long as it merely runs. But then this Balatro mod stretches the definition of “runs” as it so heavily manipulates and reshapes the game’s systems that it arguably no longer even resembles the original; at least the tractor screen was intended as a screen. I don’t think Balatro cards were ever meant to be vessels of video output, even if it is fun how shuffling them around also moves the corresponding window of Doom footage.Then, of course, you get into arguments over whether the wacky device needs to simplydisplayDoom, or to handle the actual processing for it, and honestly at this point I think the fun just stops. Maybe this post should as well, so just go look at theIt Runs Doom! Tumblr.

Yes, according to reddit user UwUDev, whoshared their prototypefor how the seminal FPS could be played within the confines of a comedy poker game. The answer, apparently, is to just turn a big pile of Joker cards into portions of a video screen. A simple solution, though one that quickly caught theapproving attentionof Balatro dev LocalThunk.

Thus spake UwUDev: “It’s super laggy and I often have big lag spikes but it works. I’ll see later if I can optimize it because it’s really unplayable x)”. Wait, if the creator says it’s unplayable then can we truly say Doom is running? Is this a ‘minimum 30fps or jog on’ situation or do we lower our standards considering someone got it working on ajailbroken tractor?

After some initial umming, I think I’d fall into the “lower our standards” camp – surely Doom does not need to actually becomfortableto play for official Can It Run Doom certification, as long as it merely runs. But then this Balatro mod stretches the definition of “runs” as it so heavily manipulates and reshapes the game’s systems that it arguably no longer even resembles the original; at least the tractor screen was intended as a screen. I don’t think Balatro cards were ever meant to be vessels of video output, even if it is fun how shuffling them around also moves the corresponding window of Doom footage.

Then, of course, you get into arguments over whether the wacky device needs to simplydisplayDoom, or to handle the actual processing for it, and honestly at this point I think the fun just stops. Maybe this post should as well, so just go look at theIt Runs Doom! Tumblr.