balatro-rl

Reinforcement Learning in Balatro

The goal is the follow:

• Make a mod for Balatro to read data and do certain actions
• Have a reinforcement learning ai see that data and perform actions and learn over time

How to set up

• Use this to figure out how to setup smodded -> https://github.com/Steamodded/smods

I am currenly on Arch Linux, so I had to follow the setup through Proton Currently writing code in a more reliable directory and having it symlink to the correct directory mods folder Made a symlink -> ln -s ~/dev/balatro-rl/RLBridge /mnt/gamerlinuxssd/SteamLibrary/steamapps/compatdata/2379780/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Roaming/Balatro/Mods/RLBridge

TODO/CHANGELOG

File-based Communication

• JSON file communication system
• Lua file writer in mod
• Python file watcher with watchdog
• Game state transmission (hand cards, chips, available actions)
• Action reception and execution

RL Training

• Python RL environment setup
• AI model architecture
• Training loop integration

Game Features

• Always have restart_run as an action option assuming the game is ongoing
• Blind selection choices (skip vs select)
• Extended game state (money, discards, hands played)
• Shop interactions
• Joker management

RL Enhancements

• Add a "Replay System" to analyze successful actions. For example, save seed, have an action log for reproduction etc Can probably do this by adding it before the game is reset like a check on what criteria I want to save for, and save