Gamepad-Style Keyboard Controls

This is a mod for Balatro that adds keyboard controls (configurable by editing a file) that simulate the base game's gamepad controls, allowing one to play the game on PC without needing to touch the mouse or use a gamepad.

This mod comes with newly-made key icons that will replace the gamepad button icons for prompts when using the keyboard. You can edit these textures if you wish to change their look (just be sure to edit both sizes, or at least the one matching your Pixel Art Smoothing setting), or else keep the original button icons by turning off a setting in the main mod file.

It is made to be used with Steamodded, but the "Direct Patch Version" folder contains an alternative version which can be patched into the game "permanently" (barring updates to the game) by editing a file or two inside Balatro.exe's file structure.

Installation (

Steamodded)

• []Install Steamodded, referring to the installation instructions on GitHub. This mod was tested on the latest pre-release alpha for 1. 0. 0, but it may work for earlier versions of Steamodded as well.

  []Go to the Mods folder in the Balatro save folder (on Windows, %AppData%/Balatro), creating it if it doesn't already exist, and place the GamepadStyleKeyboardControls folder inside it.

  []Inside the GamepadStyleKeyboardControls folder, open GamepadStyleKeyboardControls.lua with a text editor. Read the notes at the top of the file and change things as desired to configure keyboard assignments and a few other settings.

  Installation (Direct Patch)

  • []Navigate to the game folder. On Steam, you can get there by right clicking Balatro in your library and going to "Manage > Browse local files."

    []Copy Balatro.exe as a backup before making any changes.

    []Open Balatro.exe as an archive. You can do this using 7-Zip: Open 7-Zip, browse to the Balatro folder, then right click on Balatro.exe and choose "Open inside." (Alternatively, if you temporarily change the file extension to . 7z, you may be able to browse it in the file explorer. If you do this, be sure to change the extension back to .exe after making changes.)

    []Extract main.lua from the base directory inside Balatro.exe. Open it with a text editor and append the contents of KeyboardControlsPatch.lua to the end of it. Be sure to configure keys and other settings at the top of this section. Once done, replace the main.lua in Balatro.exe with your new version.

    []Unless you've disabled the changeButtonIconsToKeys setting, drag in the included "resources" folder to merge with the one inside Balatro.exe. This should put keyboard_icons.png (at both 1x and 2x scale) in the proper places.