Tabulo is chess meets Balatro and it's out now

Is it chess? Is it Balatro? It's both, sort of. Tabulo is a pretty clever mixture of gameplay elements that looks set to hook you in. As covered initially here on GamingOnLinux back in November 2025 it has now actually released with Native Linux support too.

Balatro really did start another trend for indie games didn't it. We also have Bingo Betty, Luxman Moonlit Market, Replicat, Lexispell, Dungeon Holdem and various others that all in some way have inspiration coming from it. I love to see it though, these smaller repeatable games are great to kick-back with.

From the Steam page for Tabulo: "Position your pieces carefully to max out your score in this Balatro-inspired chess roguelike. Enhance your pieces, purchase powers, and win bonuses from optional challenges, but be careful - your board only has so much room"

Check out the trailer below:

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Game Features:

• Several chess pieces to add to your board.
• 100 tiles, each with its unique ability.
• 10 boards with different modifiers to choose from every run.
• 25 coins that can modify your pieces, board and impact every run.
• 8 difficulty levels that provide unique and increasingly harder challenges.
• 20 bosses that make every run a new challenge.