Balatro-VST

Original README below

This is a hacked up version of the LÖVE framework allowing to load LÖVE games as a VST, and most notably the hit game Balatro. The project is based on the CPLUG wrapper and the example file that comes with it.

I do not take any responsibility for this crashing your DAW, corrupting your project, or drastically reducing your productivity. Use this at your own risk!

As this was mostly made as a proof of concept and for shitposting purposes, this comes with a few (?) caveats:

• Only one instance per project
• Does not work on Ableton (you can use a VST wrapper such as Element to make it work though)
• Audio does not go through the DAW
• Windows (x64) only
• Does not use your Steam save (it can be very easily migrated though, see below)
• Absolutely abhorrent code (such as passing a window handle into an environment variable), which probably means tons of bugs / crashes, you have been warned

Additionally, the game needs to be slightly patched to account for a few things inherent to the way the game is run; a patcher is included in this project in order to automatically do that. Details about the patches can be found below.

Quick start

You need a legitimate Steam copy of the game to use this.

• Download the latest release and patcher from the Releases page
• Copy the Balatro.exe file from your copy of the game somewhere and drag it into the patcher.exe file. A Balatro.love file will be generated, which is the patched game
• Copy Balatro.vst3 and Balatro.love into your VST folder. Both files must be in the same folder

It is also recommended to set the game's Window Mode as Borderless for the best experience. Remove the instance of the game and add a new one for it to properly take effect.

Build

Follow the instructions from the original README. A modified CMakeLists.txt file for the megasource repository is also included here as CMakeLists.txt.megasource, allowing to include all dependencies as static libraries.

Patches

The following patches are needed in order for the game to work properly:

• Remove Steam integration
• Properly stop all threads from running when exiting the game

The included patcher can do these automatically, its source code is also included in the repository in the patcher folder.

Migrate Steam save

To migrate your Steam save in order to use it in this, just copy the %appdata%\Balatro folder inside the %appdata%\LOVE folder (create it if it does not exist).

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LÖVE is an awesome framework you can use to make 2D games in Lua. It's free, open-source, and works on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS.

Documentation

We use our wiki for documentation. If you need further help, feel free to ask on our forums, our Discord server, or our subreddit.

Repository

We use the 'main' branch for development of the next major release, and therefore it should not be considered stable.

There are also branches for currently released major versions, which may have fixes and changes meant for upcoming patch releases within that major version.

We tag all our releases (since we started using mercurial and git), and have binary downloads available for them.

Experimental changes are sometimes developed in a separate love-experiments repository.

Builds

Files for releases are in the releases section on GitHub. The site has links to files and additional platform content for the latest release.

There are also unstable/nightly builds:

• Builds for some platforms are automatically created after each commit and are available through GitHub's CI interfaces.
• For ubuntu linux they are in ppa:bartbes/love-unstable
• For arch linux there's love-git in the AUR.

Test Suite

The test suite in testing/ covers all the LÖVE APIs, and tests them the same way developers use them. You can view current test coverage from any action.
You can run the suite locally like you would run a normal LÖVE project, e.g.:
love testing

See the readme in the testing folder for more info.

Contributing

The best places to contribute are through the issue tracker and the official Discord server or IRC channel.

For code contributions, pull requests and patches are welcome. Be sure to read the source code style guide. Changes and new features typically get discussed in the issue tracker or on Discord or the forums before a pull request is made.

Compilation

Windows

Follow the instructions at the megasource repository page.

*nix

Because in-tree builds are not allowed, the Makefiles needs to be generated in a separate build directory. In this example, folder named build is used:

$ cmake -B build -S. --install-prefix $PWD/prefix # this will create the directory `build/`.
$ cmake --build build --target install -j$(nproc) # this will build with all cores and put the files in `prefix/`.

Note

CMake 3.15 and earlier doesn't support --install-prefix. In that case, use -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX= instead.

macOS

Download or clone this repository and copy, move, or symlink the macOS/Frameworks subfolder into love's platform/xcode/macosx folder and the shared subfolder into love's platform/xcode folder.

Then use the Xcode project found at platform/xcode/love.xcodeproj to build the love-macosx target.

iOS

Building for iOS requires macOS and Xcode.

Download the love-apple-dependencies zip file corresponding to the LÖVE version being used from the Releases page, unzip it, and place the iOS/libraries subfolder into love's platform/xcode/ios folder and the shared subfolder into love's platform/xcode folder.

Or, download or clone this repository and copy, move, or symlink the iOS/libraries subfolder into love's platform/xcode/ios folder and the shared subfolder into love's platform/xcode folder.

Then use the Xcode project found at platform/xcode/love.xcodeproj to build the love-ios target.

See readme-iOS.rtf for more information.

Android

Visit the Android build repository for build instructions.

Dependencies

• SDL3
• OpenGL 3.3+ / OpenGL ES 3.0+ / Vulkan / Metal
• OpenAL
• Lua / LuaJIT / LLVM-lua
• FreeType
• harfbuzz
• ModPlug
• Vorbisfile
• Theora