TOKENS Steam Demo Review
Verdict: Play
TOKENS takes the Balatro formula, swaps cards for double-sided tokens, and mostly makes it work.
TOKENS is a Roguelike Deck Builder from solo developer Quentin De Beukelaer of Atelier QBD, set in a roaring twenties speakeasy called the Token Club. Instead of cards, you work with double-sided tokens placed on a board, trying to hit a target score each round. The flip mechanic changes everything. It takes obvious inspiration from Balatro and makes it something genuinely different.
TOKENS is a deck builder roguelike where double-sided tokens replace cards and flip at random during play. Lining up the right combinations triggers harmonies, which drive the big score multipliers. The reviewer verdict is play, particularly for fans of Balatro looking for a different take on the same itch.
Pros
- Flip mechanic adds genuine novelty
- Harmony system creates big score moments
- Real strategic depth as runs progress
- Easy to pick up and experiment with
Cons
- Tutorial easy to overlook
- Visuals feel too polished, lacks grit
- Looks slightly mobile-game aesthetic
Learning the System
Skipping most of the tutorial means figuring out the system by placing tokens and seeing what happens. That approach causes early trouble and a flow state later, which is probably the right order for an Indie Roguelike asking you to learn something new.
The early trouble comes from not understanding the flip mechanic. Every token is double-sided and flips at random. One side does one thing, the other does something different. Lining them up in the right combinations triggers harmonies, which are the big score multipliers that Balatro players will immediately recognise. The Strategy here is not about which tokens to play but about how to position them so the flips work in your favour.
A standout early moment: throwing tokens down almost at random and smashing the target score by about five times. The defeat screen showed a best play of 11,248 and 31 harmonies triggered across that run. With no clear understanding of why any of it worked, that felt like exactly the right energy, the moment where the machine you have half-built accidentally becomes something brilliant.
The Board and the Build
The board adds a layer that takes time to appreciate. Certain squares have properties that change the token placed on them. A black square makes a token Black, which then interacts with arcanes that trigger effects for Black tokens specifically. The Carpenter arcane causes all Black tokens to retrigger. Understanding which squares to target and which tokens to place on them becomes the real Deck Builder Strategy once the basic loop is comfortable.
As the run progresses, more options open up to customise the token set and build toward specific synergies. The arcanes collected between rounds shape the direction of the run, and a combination that clicks produces the kind of compounding score explosion that makes this genre work. Whether the full depth was being scratched at the surface across an hour and twenty minutes is genuinely unclear. The tools are there. Finding the ceiling takes longer than the demo allows.
The Shop and Visual Design
The shop between rounds is set in the speakeasy itself, a beautifully illustrated jazz club scene with named characters available to purchase. The Compass, the Carpenter, the Rat King, the Dancer, Vanilla Flower, Loch Ness Monster: each one modifies the run in a specific way. The Dancer gives an extra 5 dollars per round. Others modify how tokens interact or add new effects to the board. The visual design in these screens is the strongest part of the demo and gives TOKENS a personality that most Indie Roguelikes in this genre do not have.
The one criticism is that the in-game board visuals are slightly too shiny. A bit more visual grit and texture would give the core gameplay screen the same depth and character the shop has. Right now the token board looks slightly like a mobile game that has not fully committed to a PC aesthetic. The jazz club setting is doing the heavy lifting on identity, and the board itself could use some of that same treatment.
Verdict
Download it, particularly if you enjoy Balatro or any Roguelike Deck Builder and want something that does something genuinely different with the format. The double-sided token mechanic is not just a reskin of the card formula. The flip randomness changes how you think about placement in a way that takes runs to understand properly.
Five reviews on the demo at time of playing, not enough for a score. Full release is Q3 2026, no price confirmed. Go in ready to lose the first few rounds to the tutorial you skipped.
Developer: Atelier QDB
View on Steam
Watch the video review: YouTube
Tags: Deck Builder, Roguelike, Indie, Strategy
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