THIS MONTH
THIS MONTH ON EDGE
Some of the other things on our minds when we weren’t doing everything else
WEB GAME
Pile-Up Poker
bit.ly/pileuppoker
After a few months in the grip of a Balatro habit (that Steam play time number can’t be right, surely?), here’s a nice soft comedown. The latest Puzzmo Balatro, addition is similarly poker-themed, presenting you with a 36-card deck – six through to Ace, no Jokers – and a four-byfour grid on which to play them. You’re dealt five cards at a time, of which one is discarded; the rest can be played down in any open spot, gradually building to the usual poker hands along each row and column, plus the grid’s corner spots and even your discard pile. The scoring system is overly byzantine, with daily sidequests and multipliers, and we rather suspect the first round is blind guesswork. But sometimes just drawing out pretty patterns on your phone screen is enough – and frankly, if it isn’t quite as compulsive as that’s no bad thing.