Disclaimer

This page is currently under construction, available for the sole purpose of collating information all in one place, as smoothly as possible. I did not creat or am involved in the mod itself.

Introduction

Balatro. A game that dropped pretty much out of nowhere, to critical acclaim. An unusual title that so many became addicted to on release, but that was, in spite of being a card game, unfortunately inaccessible to gamers without sight.

That is until August 8th, 2024, when the initial build of an accessibility mod allowing the game to interface with screen readers was launched.

But What Actually Is Balatro?

Taking a quote from the Steam Store page:

Balatro is a poker-inspired roguelike deck builder all about creating powerful synergies and winning big.

Combine valid poker hands with unique Joker cards in order to create varied synergies and builds. Earn enough chips to beat devious blinds, all while uncovering hidden bonus hands and decks as you progress. You’re going to need every edge you can get in order to reach the boss blind, beat the final ante and secure victory.

The Mod

The Accessibility mod consists of a series of components, as outlined and linked belo

Downloading Required Files

Purchase and install Balatro from Steam, if you haven’t already.
Once installed, launch the game via its desktop shortcut or through Steam itself. Leave it running for around 30 seconds just to be on the safe side as the game’s electronic soundtrack plays, then close the window with alt+F4.

This step serves to allow the game to create various folder structures that will be referred to shortly.
Download the following components:

I would recommend moving the above zip files into a directory and naming it something useful, such as Balatro Mods, for the sake of archival and for making the next steps relatively smooth.

Install Procedure

Note: the below instructions make reference to adjusting antivirus (AV) exclusions. I take no responsibility for any damage that may occur as a result of you attempting this step, regardless of its mandatory nature to play the mod.

Extract the Lovely zip file from earlier, inside is a file called Version.dll.

This file is flagged as malicious by various AV programs, such as Windows Defender and MalwareBytes.

Creating an exclusion for Defender is covered in this article, though I cannot vouch for how easy the instructions are to follow as a screen reader user, as that was not the process I followed.
Exclusion created, move the aforementioned version.dll file into the root directory of Balatro. If the game is installed on your C drive, this should be:

C:Program Files (x86)SteamsteamappscommonBalatro

Leave this open for later.
Now hold the Windows key and press R, then release both to get into the Run dialogue.

Here, type %appdata%. This should put you in a directory called Roaming.
In this Roaming directory, find a folder called Balatro and in this folder, create a new subdirectory called Mods. Leave this folder open too, as you’ll need it soon
Now Extract the Steamodded zip file and copy the resulting folder to the clipboard
Paste this into the mods folder you just created, then repeat the previous step and this one with the Black Hole zip file as well.
In your mods directory, you should now have folders for Steamodded and Black Hole
The original final step was to move some DLL’s, but as of a recent mod update to Black Hole this is, apparently no longer required.

<!–

The final step in the install process is to look in your Black Hole folder you just copied over.

You should find a Bin folder.
Copy and paste the contents of this folder, consisting of nvdaControllerClient64, SAAPI64 and tolk DLL files into your Balatro root directory.

–>

Running The Game

If everything’s worked correctly, you should now be able to launch Balatro again. This time, you should hear NVDA speak various version numbers and other relevant information when everything loads in!

The Journey Begins

Once you’re up and running with the mod, you can start looking at guides like this beginner’s guide to Balatro and figuring out how things work for yourself.

However, I do have a tip or two of my own, as I start my own adventure in this weird and wonderful card-based brain puzzler.

Controls

The game, courtesy of Black Hole, supports both controller and keyboard, below are the controls (as taken from Black Hole’s read me) for each associated input:

Controller (Xbox Naming Conventions)

DPad: Move Through UI elements
X: Play Hand/Re-role Shop
Y: In main menu/whilst paused =Start New Run, disgard in gameplay, or next round whilst in a shop
A: Confirm, Select Cards (Hold+DPad to rearrange cards)
B: Cancel, deselect all cards if you have any selected
Start/menu: Open options menu
Left Trigger: Show deck preview
Right Trigger: Open Deck View
Left Bumper: Sell card
Right Bumper: Buy card or use consumable
Back/View: Open Run Info

keyboard

WASD: Move Through UI elements
X: Play Hand/Re-role Shop
C: In main menu/whilst paused =Start New Run, disgard in gameplay, or next round whilst in a shop
Space: Confirm, Select Cards (Hold+DPad to rearrange cards)
Shift: Cancel, deselect all cards if you have any selected
Escape: Open options menu
Q: Show deck preview
E: Open Deck View
Z: Sell card
V: Buy card or use consumable
Tab: Open Run Info

Tips

use A Controller

Though you can use a keyboard to play this game as discussed above, I’d recommend you use a controller if you have one. For me personally things felt a lot more fluid and I didn’t have to remap an already complicated-looking set of keybinds.

Look At Your Hand

Balatro’s UI might look daunting at first, whether you’ve played Poker or not. However, an important thing to keep track of is how much your hand will earn as you play, as that’s how you pass the blinds that block your path.

Once you’ve selected cards, if you want to see what kind of hand they create, move down and to your left with the DPad and you should find a button that says Play Hand. This button also contains other information, including what kind of hand you currently have selected, which can influence what cards you keep or disgard.

Adjust Game Speed

If you’re frustrated at waiting for the animations to play out and just want results, the game does have in-built speed adjustments (assigned to 2 on the keyboard), though mods have seemingly upped this flexibility. This guide will be updated once I’ve tested such a mod.

Enable Achievements

As a part of the Steamodded installation, you’ll see an Example Mods folder. In there is an achievement enabler mod. Copy and paste this file into your main mods directory just like you did with the Black Hole and Lovely folders and achievements should now work, giving you even more of a reason to keep playing.

Final Thanks

Thank you to the hard working developers and testers who put this together, it’s brilliant to be able to play a game that so many spoke highly of and I had thought might permanently be off-limits to me and so many others. I can’t wait to see how this develops, especially given the core modded gameplay already seems very solid indeed.

Now, go off and beat those blinds!

Back to the main reviews, guides and articles page