LocalThunkTheres no such thing as overnight success This is my thought after reading the latest blog article from LocalThunk, the developer of the 2024 TGA Best Debut Indie Game, Baltro. Behind the staggering performance of Balatro are efforts and pressure that are far beyond our imagination.Titled The Balatro Timeline, the article covered all the main events from the very beginning when the concept came into form and all the way up to the marvelous release in February last year. Since that time, LocalThunk has been working on all the amazing updates, community support, and relevant business, barely being able to squeeze time to write down important moments and milestones something the developer believes necessary to do as soon as possible. I say better late than never!There are quite a few aspects recorded during the games development, including the initial concept, the demo launch, LocalThunks quitting his full-time IT job to focus on making his own game, and more. But what was fairly impressive was the stress and the physical and mental health issues he had to deal with. Starting from August 2023, things were getting worse, and it lasted all the way until the launch. This was entirely because of the stress around dealing with the public, players, and the pressure to get everything done before February 2024.How hard could it be? LocalThunk recalled that in October of 2023, Every few nights I need to sleep sitting upright on the couch because sleeping while lying down kept getting interrupted by my heart. I stupidly thought that I couldnt handle going to the doctor while dealing with all the dev and business stuff swirling around at the time. I felt totally overwhelmed.LocalThunkWhat accompanied all these pressures was the growing anticipation from the audience, as proved by the increasing number of wishlists that Balatro got, which for sure increased the burden on his shoulders. As the old saying goes, The darkest hour is just before the dawn. In January 2024, during the eve of the games release, he continued working on implementing stuff, which was a super crunch mode, as he took it. My heart is really bothering me. I routinely cant sleep until the sun comes up, and my mental health is really suffering. I love working on the game but working on it so publicly and with such an intensity for so long is really catching up with me.Luckily, that has become past, and all those sleepless nights have paid off. The launch was 10 to 20 times larger than he expected, and guess what, the game helped him earn $600,000 in a few hours, far more money than Ive made in my entire life.This article shows us all the aspects of creating a hit title, which is a combination of great ideas, hard work, endless effort, and some incidents (Thanks to the rule of the company that LocalThunk worked for, which didnt allow people to accumulate vacation days annually, he took a long holiday in December 2021, when an early prototype that had the bones of Balatro although without Jokers came up). Balatro probably wont have a chance to be what it is today without any of them.If youre interested in learning the Baltro chronicle, check the full article here. Also, dont forget tojoin our80 Level Talent platformand ournew Discord server, follow us onInstagram,Twitter,LinkedIn,Telegram,TikTok, andThreads,where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.Source link The post LocalThunk Recalls The Huge Pressure & Mental Health Issues While Working On Balatro appeared first on CG SHARES.