This is a time-lapse of me very quickly demonstrating the entire, end-to-end process, by putting together an 18-card expansion deck in just under 3 hours.

2024 EDIT: I built this game in 2022, before cheap, low-effort, and morally questionable AI art generation tools became broadly available to all of humanity. I did it using python scripts and legitimate, public data-sets of verifiable provenance, and put a lot of additional effort into the output and layout of the cards - and I’ve made the output available for free. Please do not come at me with “AI is prima facie immoral” unless you’re willing to engage with this project on these terms.

okay, so, I hear on the grapevine that Black Deck Gold Stake is the nastiest challenge in Balatro.

Magic: the Gathering really captured my heart from a young age. There’s something really compelling about building a deck and doing fights with it.

I kinda drifted away from it, though. It’s an expensive hobby, and the “C” part of CCG never really appealed to me: I derive little joy from collecting.

Learn From My Mistakes

and why I think that’s important

So, uh, perhaps you are familiar with Arkham Horror? Maybe a decade ago I brought you to my home to attempt to play it as a group?

It’s a card game! It’s a narrative game! It’s a combination card game narrative game!