After falling in love with Inscryption and, subsequently, Balatro, I’ve enjoyed experiencing how developers experiment with well-established card games by introducing new mechanics and, in the case of Black Jacket, a story. As a soul navigating the afterlife, you progress through Blackjack battle after Blackjack battle, getting your score as close to 21 without going over. As the hands progress, you wager more, with the first player to run out of coins losing. But it’s far from just regular Blackjack, as cards can carry certain effects, like allowing you to peek at your top cards and rearrange them or outright destroying your enemy’s cards to dash away their plans. Each stage has a boss battle against another chatty soul in the underworld, and with a roguelite structure, you encounter them multiple times over the course of various runs, and each time you defeat them, you either learn more of their mortal backstory or earn cards they use from their deck. These cards combine with other cards you accumulate through your run to customize your deck and, by extension, your strategy. I’m not quite as enamored by Black Jacket as I was Inscryption or Balatro, but I’m still having a blast. The Switch version has become my go-to plane game as I continue my current travel gauntlet.
