Balatroscreen

Based on game build 714014 | Last updated: 2026-03-09

Overview

BalatroScreen is a UI screen component that displays and manages the Balatro minigame interface. It inherits from Screen and constructs a layered UI hierarchy with a semi-transparent black overlay, a root layout container, and a BalatroWidget instance. It integrates with the audio mixer for background music and sound context, and manages per-player card sound muting during gameplay.

Usage example

-- Typically instantiated internally by the minigame flow
local screen = BalatroScreen(owner, target, jokers, cards)
FRONTEND:PushScreen(screen)

Dependencies & tags

Components used: None directly accessed via inst.components.X. Tags: None added or checked.

Properties

Property	Type	Default Value	Description
owner	entity or nil	nil	The player entity that owns the screen (used for music triggering).
target	entity or nil	nil	The target entity whose local card sounds should be muted during the screen.
game	BalatroWidget or nil	nil	The primary widget managing the Balatro gameplay logic.
blackoverlay	Image	nil	Full-screen semi-transparent black overlay used for dimming background UI.
root	Widget	nil	Root layout container for screen elements.
default_focus	Widget	self.game	Widget that receives default input focus.

Main functions

OnDestroy()

• Description: Cleans up the screen on destruction — restores card sound muting, pops the audio mix, prints the final score for debugging, closes the Balatro popup, and calls parent cleanup.
• Parameters: None.
• Returns: Nothing.

OnBecomeInactive()

• Description: Deactivates the screen; delegates to parent class behavior.
• Parameters: None.
• Returns: Nothing.

OnBecomeActive()

• Description: Activates the screen; delegates to parent class behavior.
• Parameters: None.
• Returns: Nothing.

TryToCloseWithAnimations()

• Description: Attempts to close the screen using Balatro's animation if the game widget exists; otherwise immediately pops the screen from the frontend stack.
• Parameters: None.
• Returns: Nothing.

OnControl(control, down)

• Description: Handles input control events. Delegates to parent class first; returns true if handled, false otherwise.
• Parameters:
  • control (string or number) – The control identifier (e.g., "accept", "cancel").
  • down (boolean) – Whether the control was pressed (true) or released (false).
• Returns: boolean – true if the event was handled, false otherwise.

GetHelpText()

• Description: Returns the help text for the current controller configuration. Currently returns an empty string as no help text is defined.
• Parameters: None.
• Returns: string – Always returns an empty string ("") in current implementation.

Events & listeners

• Listens to: None explicitly via inst:ListenForEvent.
• Pushes: None explicitly via inst:PushEvent.
• Uses internal event push (in UpdateBalatroMusic): playbalatromusic – pushed periodically on the owner entity if present.
• Uses internal event push (in OnDestroy): POPUPS.BALATRO:Close(self.owner) – closes the Balatro popup.