Balatro mods for Steam Deck

Notes

I followed Steam Community - A Guide to Balatro Mods on the Steam Deck.

Apparently not all Balatro mods are compatible with Lovely runtime. Chaotix mentions this in the guide:

Note that mods that require “Balamod” are not compatible with Steamodded. Lovely mods should also work with this method as well.

Steps

Install Lovely

Lovely is a a runtime lua injector for LÖVE 2d and the first step in installing Balatro mods.

1. Get the latest Windows (yes, Windows even for Steam Deck) release from https://github.com/ethangreen-dev/lovely-injector/releases
2. Unzip and copy version.dll to Balatro game folder (Steam → Manage → Browse local files, for me /home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Balatro)
3. Set your game’s launch options (Steam → Properties → Launch options) in Steam to WINEDLLOVERRIDES="version=n,b" %command%.
4. To revert back to vanilla Balatro, remove version.dll and clear the launch options.

Install Steammods (aka smods)

1. I used the git method documented at https://github.com/Steamodded/smods/wiki#method-3b-using-the-command-line:
2. `cd ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/2379780/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Roaming/Balatro/Mods
3. git clone https://github.com/Steamodded/smods.git
4. (to update, run git pull)

Install mods

1. I downloaded Bunco’s zip file and unzipped it to mods folder
2. unzip ~/Downloads/Bunco-5.1.zip cd ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/2379780/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Roaming/Balatro/Mods

Then when running Balatro through Steam, a Mods menu item should appear on the main menu.