Pokermancer jumps on the Balatro bandwagon with mobile release

As much as I adore gaming, I really dislike the inevitability that if something performs well, you're going to see clones of it everywhere. Extraction shooters, battle royales, asymmetric horror, the examples go on. Balatro is the latest to get the copycat treatment, with Pokermancer out now, offering its take on the card game trend.

Pokermancer is what happens when you take Balatro and shove a match-3 into it. You have a 4x4 grid of cards, and you need to trace a path through them to form a poker hand. Do it a few times and get a high enough score, and you win. Happy days. There is, of course, skill to this, though, beyond knowing poker hands.

When you make a hand, the grid will shift into the spaces, allowing new cards from your deck to rain from above. You will need to take into account what future hands you can make after this cascade, and decide if it is worth sacrificing a few points to give yourself an easier time in your next swipe.

There are also hazards to account for, such as frozen, burning, and static cards that you might want to avoid. Get through five labels, and a boss will pop up and change the rules, so you can’t just rest on a strategy that's been working. Luckily, there's a break room between rounds where you can buy trinkets and items to change how you score until the boss ruins your setup. 

If you manage to beat all five tables, you will unlock Overtime. This is an ascending difficulty challenge with ten ranks. Resources are ripped away and new challenges added; the ultimate Pokermancer challenge. And even better, there's no ads getting in the way. You get the first two tables free, and then you will need to pay $4.99 to unlock the rest. Or, keep failing the second table; infinite gametime. Consumer advice.

Pokermancer is available to download from the App Store and Google Play now.