Of all the Balatro-likes on Steam, I think I’m enjoying this Mahjong version best

Every so often I’ll be sitting on my couch playing Balatro on Steam Deck and have an unwanted thought: I should really play something other than Balatro once in a while. So, I take a look through Steam to see what other games aren’t Balatro but are still pretty much Balatro so I don’t have to stop playing Balatro even when I’m not playing Balatro.

And there are quite a few! Balatro introduced us all to the magic of a poker roguelike last year, and since then we’ve seen a bunch of other efforts to combine a traditional game with the deckbuilder formula. There’s Balatro but it’s blackjack, Balatro but it’s pachinko, Balatro but it’s solitaire, even Balatro but it’s Scrabble.

And arriving on Steam this week in early access, it’s Balatro but it’s Mahjong—and it has an actual name, too: Aotenjo: Infinite Hands. Of the various Balatro-likes I’ve played so far, I think I like it best. It’s not trying to be Balatro in the most obvious ways: it’s not slick or flashy, there’s not a ton of animation, and visually it looks like it’d be right at home next to Solitaire on Windows 95. But I’m into that low-key vibe, free of exploding booster packs and flying tiles.

I should point out here that I’m not much of a Mahjong guy: I know I’ve learned to play it multiple times in my life, and I’ve had to do that because once I learn it I don’t play it again until I’ve forgotten how to play it. But there’s a nice tutorial in Aotenjo that reacquainted me with the basics, and it wasn’t long before I was playing comfortably and diving into the Balatro-ness of it all.

Once again you’re building hands against an ever-rising point total, and taking on intermittent bosses who do tricksy things like disabling certain suits. Between rounds you spend the coins earned from wins to enchant your tiles. There are all sorts of clever ways to change your hands, like swapping their numbers using a little set of tweezers, or even hiding a dot on a tile by using a grain of rice to change its value. You can also apply various buffs, increase your multipliers, and make the ever satisfying number-go-up happen. It doesn’t give me quite the casino-like high Balatro does, but there’s still an understated pleasure in putting together an enchanted hand that racks up megapoints.

Is it going to replace Balatro on my Deck most evenings? I doubt it. But Aotenjo has been a quiet pleasure so far and I think it’ll only get better as I get a bit better at understanding the ins and outs of mahjong in general. You’ll find it right here on Steam in early access, where it’s 12% off until February 2.