balatromobile 0.1.1

Balatro apk builder

Balatro Mobile

Create a mobile version of Balatro from the Windows base version of the game.

Python fork of balatro-apk-maker by blake502 and friends. Compared to the original one, it is *NIX friendly, more modular, has patch versioning and does not need to download tools from the internet.

As of today, it only supports Android, but estending it to iOS should be trivial.

Prerequisites

This script comes pre-bundled with all the tools needed to make it work. The following list of programs must be installed to make the script work:

• Java-JRE
• Python >= 3.11

Moreover, you will need a copy of the game (buy it on Steam)

Installation

Open a terminal and run

python3 -m pip install balatromobile

Usage

balatromobile android Balatro.exe

This command will output an APK with all needed patches and already signed. Ready to be installed on your Android device.

Save files

If your device is running Android 12 or prior, you can enable the external-storage patch. If you do, you will find your save files in your sdcard, more specifically under:

Android/data/dev.bootkit.balatro/

If your device is running Android 13 or later, you should NOT enable the external-storage patch. In this case, you can browse the game files using run-as in adb, for example:

adb shell run-as dev.bootkit.balatro ls

This is finnicky and error prone. I could implement a python implementation to backup and restore game files in case of "internal-storage"

Patches

Every patch is versioned, allowing the upkeeping of different patches for different versions of the game. As of today, the version check is disabled (since only one version of the game is supported anyway). A refactor is needed to make the version system make sense.

You can list the available patches using the list-patches command:

$ balatromobile list-patches
Name              Description                                                                                      Platforms
----------------  -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  -----------
basic             Basic set of patches needed to make the game run on mobile                                       android
landscape         Forces the game to always stay in landscape mode, ignoring the screeen orentation of the device  android,ios
landscape-hidpi   Forces the game to always stay in landscape mode and apply hidpi fix for iOS                     ios
crt               Disable CRT effect [Fixes blackscreen bug on Pixels and other devices]                           android,ios
fps               Cap the FPS limit to the FPS limit of the screen                                                 android,ios
external-storage  Save game files under /sdcard/Android [Works well for Android < 13]                              android

It is possible to specify the list of patches you want to apply by supplying a comma-separated list of patches, for example:

balatromobile android Balatro.exe --patches basic,landscape,external-storage

Supported Game Versions

• 1.0.1c

Advanced Usage

$ balatromobile android -h
usage: balatromobile android [-h] [--output OUTPUT] [--patches PATCHES] [--skip-sign] [--display-name DISPLAY_NAME] [--package-name PACKAGE_NAME] BALATRO_EXE

positional arguments:
  BALATRO_EXE           Path to Balatro.exe file

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --output OUTPUT, -o OUTPUT
                        Output path for apk (default: balatro-GAME_VERSION.apk)
  --patches PATCHES, -p PATCHES
                        Comma-separated list of patches to apply (default: basic,landscape,crt,fps)
  --skip-sign, -s       Skip signing the apk file with Uber Apk Signer (default: False)
  --display-name DISPLAY_NAME
                        Change application display name (default: Balatro Mobile (unofficial))
  --package-name PACKAGE_NAME
                        Change application package name (default: dev.bootkit.balatro)

Extended considerations on external game files for Android >= 13

One way to do it, would be to ask permission for a directory using Intent.ACTION_OPEN_DOCUMENT_TREE. The problem with this approach is that the current implementation uses PhysicsFS and SDL. While it could be possible at the SDL level to se the Android API to open and read files using Documents, that is not the way it is used today. old-school syscalls (as far as I understand) are used by PhysicsFS.

I worked on a patch of GameActivity.java, which correctly asks for permissions and store those permissions. I was also able to retrieve the preference (in a dirty and hacky way) in SDL and convert back to a 'standard filesystem path'. The problem is, that is a really dirty implementation and it is very prone to errors.

Do you have any suggestion? Open an issue / PR!

Credits

This software is a rewrite of balatro-apk-maker. It uses APKEditor, Uber Apk Signer and Love Android.