To mark the second anniversary of Balatro’s release, developer LocalThunk shared a blog post reflecting on his feelings and also announced that development of Balatro version 1.1 is still ongoing.

In the post, LocalThunk wrote about why he dropped out of his final year in an engineering major and switched to computer science, along with the story of the first game project he ever made.

The first game LocalThunk developed was a strategy simulation title inspired by Risk and Europa Universalis. He worked on the project for more than two years, but it was never completed and was never released.

Even so, LocalThunk said that project was exactly the kind of game he wanted to make, and that the absolute sense of freedom he felt during development is what led him to keep game development as a hobby even years later. He also shared a behind-the-scenes detail: he recently found the project files and played it for a few days, and it was actually quite fun.

Although Balatro became a major success, LocalThunk says he still maintains the same development style he had in the past—staying up until dawn at home making pixel art, writing code, and filling notebooks with ideas.

Meanwhile, it was also reported that development on Balatro version 1.1 is still in progress. The Balatro 1.1 update was previously delayed last September due to developer burnout.

This article was translated from the original that appeared on INVEN.