He was aware of deck builders and was directly inspired by Luck be a Landlord, but he was not aware of just how massive the genre is.
Direct quote from the developer:
> The one largest influence on Balatro was Luck Be a Landlord. I watched Northernlion play for a few videos and loved the concept of a non-fanatsy themed score attach roguelike a ton, so I modified the card game I was working on at the time into a roguelike.
> I cut myself off from the genre at that point intentionally, I wanted to make my own mistakes and explore the design space naively just because that process is so fun. I hear the comparison to Slay the Spire a lot but the truth is that I hadn't played that game or seen footage of it when I designed Balatro, not until much later.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1bdtmlg/comment/kup7...
