Balatro vs Cat Towers
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Balatro
This game blends poker and solitaire mechanics with unique rule-bending twists. Build powerful poker hands, discover game-changing Joker cards, and create exciting combos to defeat challenging Boss Blinds. Explore different decks and game modes for endless replayability.
- Poker and Solitaire hybrid gameplay
- Rule-bending mechanics
- Collect over 150 unique Joker cards
- Create powerful combos
- Campaign and challenge modes
- Pixel art visuals
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Welcome to the official Balatro mobile game! Hypnotic and endlessly satisfying, Balatro is a magical mix of card games like Solitaire and Poker, that lets you twist the rules in ways never seen before! Your goal is to beat the Boss Blinds by making strong poker hands. Find new Jokers that change the game and create awesome and exciting combos! Win enough chips to beat tricky bosses, and find hidden bonus hands and decks as you play. You’ll need all the help you can get to beat the big boss, win the final challenge, and win the game. Features: * Remastered controls for touch screen devices. * Each run is different: every pick-up, discard and joker can dramatically alter the course of your run. * Multiple game items: discover over 150 Jokers, each with special powers. Use them with different decks,upgrade cards and vouchers to boost your scores. * Different Game modes: Campaign mode and challenge mode for you to play. * Beautiful Pixel Art: Immerse yourself in the CRT fuzz and enjoy detailed, hand-crafted pixel art.
Cat Towers
Defend your feline friends from waves of monsters by strategically placing towers and recruiting unique cat defenders. Unleash powerful abilities and use device tilt controls to navigate the battlefield and protect your tower.
- Strategic tower placement
- Recruit unique cat defenders
- Unleash devastating abilities
- Tilt-to-move controls
- Collect coins for upgrades
- Seasonal content updates
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Welcome to Cat Tower — the ultimate tower defense game where Cats rule. Your Laser Cat is under siege. Ghosts, skeletons, witches, bats, monsters, and pirates are descending upon your crew, and it's up to you to stop them. Build an arsenal of towers, recruit powerful cat defenders, and unleash devastating abilities to protect your feline friends from wave after wave of relentless enemies. BUILD YOUR DEFENSES Place towers strategically across the battlefield. Ice Towers freeze enemies in their tracks. Fire Towers unleash scorching damage. Green Towers pack a punch. Mix and match to create the ultimate defensive line. RECRUIT LEGENDARY CATS From the scrappy Orange Cat to the almighty Rainbow Cat, unique cat defenders stand ready to join the fight. Each brings their own style to the battlefield. Collect coins, unlock new cats, and build the purrfect squad. UNLEASH THE COCONUT When things get intense, call in the Coconut — a massive area-of-effect ability that obliterates everything in its path. Charge it up, pick your target, and watch the pixel cubes fly. FACE AN ARMY OF ENEMIES They come from the shadows. Ghosts that blink through your defenses. Green ghosts that haunt in packs. Skeletons that march with purpose. Witches that zigzag unpredictably. Bats that swoop from the skies. Frankensteins that absorb massive damage. Pirates that arrive fashionably late and hit hard. Each enemy demands a different strategy. TILT TO MOVE Use your device's accelerometer to guide your cat across the screen. Dodge enemies, position yourself for the perfect shot, and stay alive. It's intuitive, responsive, and endlessly satisfying. The Laser Cats EDM soundtrack powers the flow. EARN & COLLECT COINS Every enemy defeated drops coins. Watch a quick video for bonus rewards. Spend your hard-earned coins on towers, cats, and upgrades. Your coin balance syncs across all your devices via iCloud — your progress goes wherever you go. SEASON ONE — NOW LIVE This is just the beginning. Season One brings the full Cat Tower experience with an ever-evolving roster of enemies and defenders. The tower is yours to protect. Achieve greatness on the leaderboard today! How long can you survive?
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Cat Towers at Free against Balatro's $9.99. Cat Towers also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 81%) and update cadence (every 2 days vs every 8 days). Balatro's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 5) and ads (none vs shown). On rating and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Cat Towers is free to download; Balatro costs $9.99 up front. Cat Towers sells 5 one-off in-app purchases. Balatro asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Balatro against 5.0 for Cat Towers. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Balatro has 108K ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 81% of Balatro's written reviews are positive against 100% of Cat Towers's.
Balatro ships an update every 8 days, Cat Towers every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Balatro | Cat Towers |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $9.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 5.0 (108K ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 81.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 108K — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 8 days | Every 2 days — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Free with in-app purchases — better |
| Best chart rank | #2 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 18.5 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 94 MB | 103 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 9+ |
| Developer | Playstack Ltd | Praxticus Mobile Labs LLC |
Customer experience
Balatro
Cat Towers
Bugs and requests
Balatro
Reported bugs
3 issues- Unlocks and achievements not registering properly
- Crashes and freezes on certain devices
- Joker and card interactions not working as expected
Requested features
3 requests- Cloud save sync across devices
- Portrait mode option
- Customizable UI and accessibility settings
Cat Towers
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Balatro
No in-app purchases
Cat Towers
- 2000 Coins$0.99
- 7500 Coins$2.99
- 15,000 Coins$4.99
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- 40,000 Coins$9.99
- 100,000 Coins$19.99









