Cities Skylines meets Balatro in the excellent new roguelike city builder Combolands
Combolands: Roguelike Citybuilder from developer Crux Games combines mechanics from two popular games—Balatro, a roguelike poker game, and Cities: Skylines, a city builder—to create a unique gameplay experience. The game transforms adjacency bonuses, a core mechanic in city builders where placing certain structures next to each other provides benefits, into engaging combo chains that drive progression and strategic decision-making.
The developer has avoided common pitfalls that plague games attempting to capitalize on Balatro’s unexpected success by focusing on thoughtful game design rather than mere imitation. According to Polygon, the current Steam demo shows the game is “wholly absorbing and uniquely satisfying,” suggesting Crux Games has successfully merged roguelike progression systems with strategic city-building placement mechanics.
While some developers trying to recreate Balatro’s formula have either misunderstood what makes the game enjoyable or employed questionable practices, Combolands takes a more genuine approach. The combination of Balatro’s roguelike structure and combo-chain mechanics with Cities: Skylines’ strategic adjacency bonuses creates a gameplay loop that feels fresh while remaining rooted in familiar design principles. This fusion appears to offer something distinct in the current market, where roguelike games have become increasingly common.
The game is currently available as a Steam demo, allowing players to experience its core mechanics firsthand before a full release.