Blackjack is the most austere game in the casino: two cards, one number, a dealer who never blinks. Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers has always been interesting because it refuses that austerity. Its spark came from a Taskmaster challenge in which contestants had to memorise a deck salted with nonsense cards, and solo developer Michael Davis, working as Purple Moss Collectors, followed that joke into a full roguelike, a dungeon crawl where a hall pass or a birthday card can matter more than an ace. The tavern has now opened its doors to console players.

The table still asks the old question, how close can you get to twenty-one without going over, but the stakes are different. The loser of each hand takes damage, more of it on a bust, and the standard suits become play styles: hearts heal, spades shield, diamonds pay, clubs hit harder. Then the deck starts to lie. Tarot cards, business cards, store loyalty punch-cards and birthday cards bend point totals, deal direct damage or steal an opponent’s chips. You pick a starter deck, equip Lucky Charms and descend through branching floors, pushing your luck against the tavern’s most corrupt high-rollers.

Choosing a tarot card to add to the deck in Dungeons and Degenerate Gamblers — Image: Purple Moss Collectors / Yogscast Games

The design argument is the one that made Balatro a phenomenon in the same year: take a game everyone knows by heart and let the cards break its rules. The two were quickly discussed side by side. Critics at Rock Paper Shotgun and PC Gamer found the randomness frustrating at launch, but players have been kinder, and the game holds a Very Positive rating from more than 3,600 Steam reviews. In the announcement, the studio sums up the appeal as all the degeneracy of a seedy casino with none of the risk to your savings, your mental health or the people you love.

It has also been a real business. Yogscast Games, the Bristol publisher behind PlateUp!, says Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers grossed more than $1 million in its first month on PC after launching in August 2024. Purple Moss Collectors remains a tiny team in New Zealand, exactly the kind of outfit Yogscast, founded in 2017, says it was built to back.

The casino slot machine event used to buy new cards in Dungeons and Degenerate Gamblers — Image: Purple Moss Collectors / Yogscast Games

The console versions are out now on PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch, released on October 9, 2026. They arrive with update 2.0.7 on every platform, which improves the Pachinko event, strengthens controller support and adds balance changes and bug fixes. That controller work matters on a pad, where a game built on reading dense, rule-bending cards has to stay legible. The expanded official soundtrack now also includes every track introduced in the 2.0 “Doubling Down” update of July 2026, which added four new floors (Surveillance, Laboratory, Anxiety and Apathy) and more than 50 Lucky Charms. The full game counts over 300 cards and 60 opponents, rendered in grimy pixel art, and is also on Steam for Windows, macOS and Linux.

For a game about the house edge, the console move is its own small wager: that a run of absurd, self-sabotaging blackjack plays as well from a sofa as it does at a desk. On paper, the odds look good.

Tags: roguelike games, Yogscast Games, Balatro, deck-building games, Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers, Purple Moss Collectors