A beautiful little baby boy named Jimbo was conceived on December 13th, 2021 and was born nine months later in August of 2022. No joke, LocalThunk confirmed this himself in his timeline blog.

After Jimbo was born, it wasn’t until about 18 months that he started walking. Then, the next day, he started flying.

February 20, 2024: Balatro is born, the only game that I have ever played for hundreds of hours on mobile. I currently have 27 hours logged in on Steam, I know… little kid numbers. But Balatro sparked the lust for a hidden gem that now has hundreds of hours added to for me. That is good ol’ Texas Hold ‘Em. How could a video game get me into a physical card game?

It’s a shame to say that, as a Las Vegas native, the first time I really got a hold of Hold ‘Em for reals was thanks to a game I found when I was 25. But hey, those were 25 virgin years of not gambling. Oh well… better look out, Arthur Morgan, I’m coming for you.

The Success

It is perfect.

As of 10:31 PM on July 9th of 2025, on Steam alone, Balatro has 13,301 in game players with the 24 peak on Steam showing 16,357. It is ranked 61 right now with daily players. Balatro also holds a 97% “Overwhelmingly Positive” review rating from 129,056 people. Those are celestial numbers for a game in today’s picky climate.

On iPhone it shows that Balatro won “Best Game” at the 2025 Apple Design Awards.

Apple stated:

It currently holds 79.8k ratings with 5.0 as the average. It was ranked #1 for top paid game, above Minecraft, on September 26, 2024. As of July 9th, 2025, it is currently ranked as #5 on the apple store for top paid games currently and is #2 behind Heads Up!

At the 2024 game awards, Balatro won:

• BEST INDEPENDENT GAME

• BEST DEBUT INDIE GAME

• BEST MOBILE GAME

It was also featured in Netflix series Black Mirror.

According to an official X post from January 21st of 2025, the game has sold over 5 million total units. Since then, I am sure sales have only gone up.

The Score

not chip x mult, the music score

Key: C Minor

BPM: 108

Time Signature: 7/4

Link: Balatro - Complete Original Soundtrack (Official)

Main Theme

Sound Design & Theoretical Approach:

The first instrument is a soft ride hit, leading into the recognizable anthem of the soft attack synth coupled with some subtle high-cutoff reverb and a doubling flanger.

To start off the second measure we hear a quick two hit on the kick drum with some nice doubles on the toms to hail in a juicy bassline at 0:06 in the last half of the second measure, similar to the very first note with the ride hit. The drums have some nice reverb that isn’t too broad. This allows for the low toms and kick to still have some decay without the heavy low frequencies in the reverb to muddle up the bass line.

An ethereal pad enters the blind at the beginning of the third measure 0:08 with some sort of low frequency oscillator (LFO) that is representing an echo.

The rest of the drums follow 14 hi hat notes in each measure staying in 4/4 with some syncopated kicks landing on 1-4-10-11-13 then the second measure is 1-4-10-11. That kick pattern will then repeat itself for the rest of the song. The snare is also syncopated aside from expected placement.

At 0:54 the hi hats add some flare with triplets and quadruplets to add in a “trap-type 808 crank” of hi hats on top of the already complex 14 note per measure hats. As the hats go on you can also hear some china splashes and ride hits to add some more flare. Also at 2:43 it sounds like a reversed china splash is added to flam the snare hit, although added earlier and played later in the piece.

Then at 0:22 we got the recognizable synth lead that goes into a sustained LFO that also varies per the step. This is panned center but then does some gradual right to left panning at 0:54. You can hear distantly a wide pre-reverb for after each trigger of the step to make the sound more full. As the lead goes on, it adds continual harmonies that only make it sound better.

Later on at 1:25 some tight-decay arpeggiated plucks with a nice low-filtered ping-pong delay are added to the mix with the harmonic shift in the main anthem chord loop.

At 2:28 we mainly hear a couple pads that have some nice variations with a simplified five step version of the main anthem chord loop. It is more spread out and distant from earlier before eventually building back up to the climax at 2:57.

The last minute has arguing arpeggiations and solos showing some pitch modulation. Luis at this point is just having fun on the keys.

Shop

After knowing what happens with the main theme we can immediately hear that the drum and bass are much more present in the mix likely due to some sidechain compression and ducking effects. The drums sound like they have a room reverb that brings the kit closer to the listener. The anthem chord loop seems to be more stereo and not front and center by having a high pas filter added. Flanger also sounds increased. The synth lead that comes in at 0:23 has a lot more LFO going on. This makes for harmonizing at 0:55 to creep up easier and be more smooth in the mix. The answer to making the Shop theme more intimate is a little touch of high pass filter on almost all the pads and synths, having the drums more present, and making the leads dimmer.

Arcana

This is simplified to what sounds like only five tracks. The anthem chord loop is entirely cut from this track. The lead is emulating the bass line and following it perfectly with some dips in the cutoff to muddle into the bass making the bass more present at times for some nice variation. The cymbals on the drums are more present in this track too with how simplified it is. If you listen closely you can also hear a pad reverb that seems to be frozen and holding the same pitch with some filter changes to make it sound as if it going to open, maybe with the tarot pack? ;)

Celestial

WET. WET. WET. REVERB. REVERB. REVERB. That is the answer. Rain, sulfuric acid, diamonds, whatever it is that these celestial bodies use to make a rainstorm is what Luis used in this track. This time, what was omitted are all arpeggiations and leads. Sounds like those had to stay back on Earth. The snare hit also has a pre-reverb delay that is more present. The only thing cutting through all the wet reverb are the drums and cymbals. The bass has a much lower cutoff and is almost mixed in with the reverb but is slightly ducking through.

Boss

My personal favorite theme, maybe because of PTSD and anxiety it brings to my mind. The slightly sloppy and detuned dissonant pads haunt the whole track and don’t let go. Also why is everything suddenly starting to turn violet when I hear this theme?

Anyways…the only real difference on this track versus the main theme are the dissonant pads. The pads seem to be the same as the ones on Arcana but brighter in tone and louder in volume.

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Even though I could go on and on about LouisF’s phenomenal score for this incredible game by LocalThunk, let’s hear it from the man himself. Below is a Reddit Ask Me Anything session where he answered many great questions.

Reddit AMA (full excerpts)

thatBOOMBOOMguy: Was the idea of making 6 different audio tracks that crossfade to each other yours of Thunk's?

LouisFSoundtracks: It was Local Thunk's idea, he asked me for the separated tracks so he could make such variations.

SyberKai: A few questions!

* What Synths/VSTs did you use during production? What's your favorite synth overall?

* Will there ever be a physical media release? A vinyl with the background swirl would be amazing and a cassette tape with a joker would be amazing!

* What's your next project?

LouisFSoundtracks:

-In terms of synths VSTs, I used Mini Vs for the main melody synths and the basses, then pigments and prophet for pads, pigments for the arp synth. For the percussion, Superior Drummer 3 and some battery kits.

-Not sure about the physical media release, that doesn't depend on me!

-In terms of music I'm currently searching for an interesting project that I could work in. Apart from that, I'm also coding/co-designing/composing for a game that a friend and I are making that I cannot give too many details about right now, but we'll post about it in 2025!

_SommaZero_: In which DAW did you create it? Is there any hardware synth included in the final work? Did you use any premade loop or sample?

LouisFSoundtracks:

I used Cubase, and I normally don't use hardware synth in my compositions, I'm good with the virtual versions. No loops or samples used in it!

ArchCyprez: Did the soundtrack come about via a seed of an idea from localthunk or was it the result of experimentation from your end and if so what was the inspirational patch that resulted in what we have now?

Your favourite plugin and/or favourite piece of hardware (of all time or currently whichever or both?)

What's the easiest way for me to interact with more of your work?

LouisFSoundtracks: Thanks so much for the kind words!! 🥰

There definetly was a seed, Local Thunk had a clear idea of how he wanted the theme to be, so between the references I had and the guidelines that he gave me I had a logical path to follow. Having said that, I'd say there's always some room for experimentation, but in this particular case I think the references had a bigger impact.

I find myself going back to Mini V (the minimoog replica) and pigments most of the times, they are good-for -anything synths and I've become more acquainted to them than to others; I usually don't use hardware, mostly a MIDI only keyboard that doesn't hold any synth hardware in it.

My music work overall is a bit spreaded over a couple of projects, I have my personal project, which is completely unknown 😂 (Loosy), some other stuff in soundcloud... but pretty much everything I've done for game projects have stayed hidden for from what I know the majority of the games have not really been released. I'll be updating my website soon so I'll have a nice compilation of the projects I feel are best there!

Hope you had a great holiday week too and have a happy new year!!

deeps103: Why’d you decide to write it in 7/4?

LouisFSoundtracks: So there's really no big reason behind the 7/4, I think I naturally tend to sometimes go for irregular measures because I've listened to a lot of progressive rock (Rush, Tool, Yes, Gentle Giant) and also I've played drums since I was a teenager so I believe that also has shaped my composition style; I like to put extra attention into the rhythm patterns and so on. I recall putting the 7 beat on cubase and thinking: "Yeah, this'll work" 😊

Brenden: I LOVE TOOL!!!

barugosamaa: I have some questions, hopefully you will answer and i think many would like to know:

wtf of music is that in the game and how the hell you decided to just insert a masterpiece of a vibe song??

❤️ but now jokes aside, how much work / time does it go into making such music? feels simple, yet it gives a perfect vibe to the game

LouisFSoundtracks:

Hahah glad you liked it!! It was probably 3 workingdays overall, it didn't have such a complex structure nor production so it didn't take that long.

Reddit TL;DR

• The crossfading 6-track idea was LocalThunk’s, not LouisF's.

• Synths/VSTs used: Mini V (main melodies & bass), Pigments & Prophet (pads), Superior Drummer 3 + Battery kits (drums). All done in Cubase with no hardware synths or premade loops.

• Inspiration & process: LocalThunk had a clear musical vision, and Louis followed that with room for light experimentation. 7/4 time signature came naturally from Louis' background in prog rock and drumming.

• Current status: Looking for new projects and working on a secret indie game (announcement expected in 2025).

• Total work time on Balatro score: 3 workdays

• Where to find more of his music? Loosy

Conclusion

The only reason I was made aware of this wonderful game and soundtrack is due to passion, coupled with hard work and consistency. Who knows how many endless nights LocalThunk spent working and sacrificing outings so he could make this game? I am sure glad he did. It started out as a passion project and ended as one. He still remains anonymous.

At some point along the way, though, you have to make a choice in keeping going down the right road or to go down the wrong road to eventually turn around and realize you were on the right road in the first place.

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My first time hearing about INSIDE was Monday morning at around 10 AM on June 9th, 2014, an hour through Microsoft’s E3 conference. I still remember hearing those footsteps and seeing those eerie visuals. I was so excited to dive in that game when it released. Two years later, I put my phone away and loaded the game. I made sure no distractions came about with my first playthrough and I beat the game in two play sessions without stopping. I was mesmerized. The nostalgia from hearing that spine-tingling behemoth of a sound “shockwave pulse” still reverberates in my skull to this day.

Beauty in the Dark

Before diving into the score, I want to sum up INSIDE by Playdead. Imagine you have two quilts, both have contrasting tones, one more drab than the other. You appreciate both quilts but on that one rainy day, the darker quilt stands out more to you. That’s how INSIDE feels when picking it to game on that rainy day over Mario Kart World another sunny day. It’s like choosing Schindler’s List over Jojo Rabbit on a movie night, both are great, they just hit different. You bought both quilts for a reason, but they are used at separate times.

That dull and depressive aesthetic is what makes INSIDE such a loved and niche title among gamers. It’s that aesthetic that makes a human skull the perfect incubator for Martin’s score and setting the consumer to recognize that realm.

Get that Through your Thick Skull

WHAT?!?!?!??! Yes, that’s right. A human skull! That is what was used to record the waves and vibrations the synthesizers were creating. Martin Stig Andesen journeyed somewhere no one had dared gone to before for the score of INSIDE. ChatGPT cited this for me on how it was possible:

To achieve Inside’s signature sound, Andersen created a bone-conducted audio effect using a real human skull. Inspired by a Stanford study on how the human voice sounds inside one’s own head, Andersen wanted players to experience sound as if from inside a body. His method was to attach an audio transducer (a speaker without a membrane) to a skull and send music through it. He then recorded the vibrations reverberating in the skull’s cavity with contact microphones. “You could say it works as a kind of filter,” Andersen said of the skull, noting that if you put your ear to it, you could literally hear sound ringing inside the bone.1

Martin even recorded a real human heartbeat and stomach sounds—by having a swordsman swallow a microphone. Martin’s entire emphasis and focus was on setting you in a soundscape. Although the score isn’t officially available on streaming platforms, you can find it in forms of playlists on YouTube from audio scrapers. These YouTube playlists all share something in common: none provide a clean, “score-only” audio track without in-game sound effects. Almost everywhere I see footage of Playdead’s games, it states,

Please do not present the audio or visuals detached from one another.2

It is rare to find a game company that vouches for inseparability in audio and visual elements to the extent that Playdead does. Martin is the brain behind this method of success and it is cemented in place like a turret grapple. *perspiration trickles in*

The Huddle

So what led to all this success for Playdead? LIMBO is Playdead’s firstborn and birthright holder to the launch and success of their studio. Similar to INSIDE with gameplay style, an interview I found regarding the business side of LIMBO’s launch to Playdead developers Arnt Jensen and Dino Patti states,

Q: Did you run into a point with Limbo where you thought bad decisions were going to be made because of the investors? You seem satisfied with Limbo.

DP: They were never into the product at all. But I think it's the holistic approach to like everything around the product, like marketing, and the way to show it to people, and so on.

AJ: The more we felt that Limbo was something, the less we wanted to market it. So we didn't do any marketing. We just did some PR and talked with a lot of journalists. That was it.

And of course investors can't understand that. When I said we don't want to do advertising, they thought I was crazy. They looked at me like, "What are you talking about? You should advertise for a product! It seems crazy." So how do you convince people to not advertise something you're proud of?

DP: How do you convince businesspeople to not advertise? It's the only way they know. They have no trust with what consumers want, but they know advertising is expensive and expensive things work.

So to all of you business and marketing minds out there—listen to the developers and their gut instincts. It’s their product. Use your expertise but step back when needed. It’s part of the creative flow.

After that mysterious, low-fanfare style of advertising, the studio was looked at for their gold product. The big…X📦 acquired Playdead as an independent game studio as a part of their marketing campaign for the future of the console wars. My discovery of INSIDE was a direct result of that publicity move, which I have zero complaints about.

Perhaps the largest success of Playdead in recent years is their games being added onto Xbox’s leviathan subscription service: Game Pass. As of February 2024, Game Pass subscription numbers are at 34 million. This means, theoretically, a couple million fans could discover INSIDE or LIMBO if they look hard enough on the 500+ catalog and fall in love with Playdead’s niche.

The Conclusion

Recording in a skull, swallowing a microphone for stomach sounds, or promoting with zero fanfare all led to the success of INSIDE. Do you think those three decisions were made on day one of development? I doubt it. Iteration helped cement the brand and reputation of both the company and the product that is Playdead today.

Don’t be afraid to do something different. Do not limit yourself.

Let the work guide you to where you make it work.

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Skyrim, the popular fifth entry in the main line of Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls series. A game that many have loved for years. It’s loved so well that there have been multiple re-releases since 2011. Comparing to the film industry, it took Revenge of the Sith 20 years to have a re-release in the theaters even though it made just shy of 850 million in revenue. Few games have reached Skyrim’s level of staying power.

Starting as a star according to the Boston Consulting Index, we can see that Skyrim is truly Bethesda’s highest cash cow, bringing in revenue like the thieves guild themselves. Not by stealing, of course, but by very well planned marketing tactics and a successful score. I want to hit on a point of what has probably kept this cash cow mooing that is often overlooked in the gaming industry and that is the score. Not just keeping score or upgrades, the score as in CDEFGAB.

Jeremy Soule has been in my opinion one of the greatest composers of our millennial/gen-z gaming day. Hans Zimmer, John Williams, and many others are so popularized among the film industry and deserve that triumph. Soule, however, did something that only video games do over film, he sets you in a literal ambience, a nostalgic hook, catch and release. The emotional weight of Soule’s music shows up not just in memories, but in comments. Below are two comments from fans on a long playlist on YouTube, currently with over ten thousand likes per comment.

These comments really illustrate the pyramid of nostalgia that can emerge from the combination of playtime and good music for a loyal consumer. I doubt Jeremy Soule expected comments like those would be made when he was meticulously creating the score. I am sure Soule wanted to make the score memorable but those comments reveal a rare and golden bond with the consumer.

My Story With the Score of Skyrim

I remember 11.11.11 like the back of a draugr while crouched with a drawn bow. I was a 12 year old boy so excited to dive into the northlands. Familiar with Oblivion prior, I was too young to really be married to the depth of the world of Tamriel. The first time hearing those chords and the plant of a cello with those magical harp arpeggiations walking through the streets of Whiterun was special. A place that even as I am writing this I get a little teary eyed thinking about the music and reminiscing on my childhood. It conveyed so much emotion then and still does even now when “The Streets of Whiterun” shows up on my playlist while driving backroads in Montana or Utah.

“Secunda” is an ethereal track that grasps attention, and if I close my eyes, I see nirnroot every time I hear it. There is a certain dignity that the music of Skyrim truly carries. “From Past to Present” is one song in the top of Jeremy Soule’s list on Apple Music that is well loved. Really what I am trying to say is that this music is not meant to only stay in Skyrim.

Now to the title of this article and what I believe this score has evolved into for many, catharsis. As time has spanned since being that 12 year old boy, I have begun to realize the weight the world truly has to carry with busy lifestyles. It can be hard to fall asleep sometimes. Skyrim’s score has helped me fall asleep and at the time of writing this I have 592 plays from the 10 hour Skyrim Night video on YouTube. A lot of people use sound machines and in my circle of friends I know a handful that also use music as an aid to fall asleep. I was curious and wanted to see how many others also use this score to help them sleep. Enough of my opinion, let’s hear from the fans.

The Data

Well I did it: a data scrape. I took the top three YouTube videos of Skyrim Night playlists with over 10 million views each and filtered keywords among a combined total of 13,147 top-level comments. Top-level comments mean main comments. The scrape does not include replies to the top-level comments. Here are the videos I pulled data from,

• Skyrim Night

• Skyrim Night (10 Hours)

• Skyrim Rainy Night

Below are the comments from the haters and most likely skooma users.

I just typed in the simple positive words that first come to mind for an English speaking human, favorite, best, and love. I figured antonyms on the right side with suck, worst, and hate would be good competitors like the Imperials to the Stormcloaks. As we can see, there are significantly more positive comments about Jeremy Soule’s score than negative comments. Now for the real ones…

Oh! Hey catharsis! How are you? Looks like you have a lot of friends here. Yeah I wasn’t wrong with how many people also love this score for reasons in connecting emotionally. Of course the bias is only drawing from these top three YouTube videos but the data is there.

As we can see above, the cathartic keywords outweigh positive, negative, and even all the other comments. So how did Jeremy Soule possess us all with his powerful vessel known as Sleep? Sorry I don’t know why that previous sentence is still there. I meant how has Jeremy gotten a grip on helping 902 others and me sleep to his beautiful score 14 years after the release?

Before we explore the recipe of how he did it, let’s first look at the numbers for some perspective. I asked ChatGPT to give me a deep dive on Jeremy Soule’s keys to his successful score. Chat pulled a source from an Esports post and it states that Skyrim is the third highest streamed video game score.

The following is from a sketchy website so I don’t know if their data scraping is entirely accurate. According to Kworb, as of April 2025, Jeremy Soule’s Skyrim is at 963,584,658 streams on Spotify alone. This would prove that Toby Fox’s Undertale is still at #1 with a number of 2,027,090,342 streams proving the esports post to be credible.

So yes, the numbers are there. But that leaves us with one big question:

What did Jeremy do to make his Soule speak to millions of souls? 👻

The Alchemy

A Harvard article states that,

Taken from Paul Dean’s 2013 blog a quote Jeremy Soule himself in an interview states,

“I set out to create a theme that would talk to you. There’s an element of thematic purpose… You want to create something that you feel will be durable, that will go the distance.”

Clearly the hard work that Jeremy put in panned out in the long run. The short run approach was not the emphasis and this definitely worked in Bethesda’s favor. Todd Howard really scored on this one. *ba dum tsss*

How Soule did the composing is of argument even to this day but I found this using the wayback machine,

To prove it isn’t disinformation, I found the reply to the post on X from July 7, 2018 even though Jeremy Soule deleted his account since then.

I am flabbergasted that everything was entirely digital excluding the 30-man choir. So that means the dulcimer, strings, lute, timpani and many more instruments you hear in the score are all MIDI controlled. Wow. The orchestra and sections of the choir were done with advanced breath control software.

The Conclusion

I want to share a marketing nugget I found. In January of 2024 an article published by two renowned marketing researchers states that the experience tied with the product is more important than just the product,

Bethesda sure won my heart with this masterpiece. Skyrim still has memes being made to this day and still has an active fanbase. As I write this, the concurrent player base in the last 24 hours is 357,317 on Steam alone. I am sure a similar or higher amount is being played on the consoles as well.

In the end the key is to focus on making the best experience you can for the consumer. It might take a couple “restless” nights to get to that “well rested” bonus but it will be worth it in the long run. 10% more is always worth it. If you got that reference, you’re in.

*hits Secunda for the 593rd time

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