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Balatro Cheats: Accessing the Debug Menu Guide

Author : Riley

Apr 13,2025

Balatro took the gaming world by storm upon its release in early 2024, selling over 3.5 million copies and clinching three out of five nominations at the 2024 Game Awards. Its innovative gameplay and endless replayability have kept it at the forefront of player interest. As players become more adept at its mechanics, they often seek new ways to enhance their experience.

While mods offer one solution, some prefer the game's built-in developer debug menu, which can be accessed with a few simple steps. Balatro cheats allow players to create their ideal Joker combinations without the need to hunt for perfect seeds, and they have the advantage of maintaining unlocked achievements, making them a great choice for those who wish to avoid mods.

How to Enable Cheats in Balatro

To enable the Balatro debug menu and utilize the game's built-in cheats, players will need the free, open-source software, 7-Zip. Assuming you have this installed, navigate to the Balatro installation directory, typically found at C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Balatro. If it's not there, locate Balatro in your Steam library, right-click, and select "Manage" followed by "Browse Local Files".

Once in the correct folder, right-click on Balatro.exe and choose to open the archive with 7-Zip. Depending on your operating system and 7-Zip installation settings, this option might be found under "Show More Options". After opening the archive, locate and open the file named conf.lua using a basic text editor like Notepad.

To enable the debug menu, change _RELEASE_MODE = true to _RELEASE_MODE = false and save the file. If you encounter issues saving, extract conf.lua to your desktop, make the change, and then replace the original file with this modified version. Once done, you can access the debug menu by holding the tab button in-game.

To disable the debug menu, simply revert the _RELEASE_MODE parameter in the conf.lua file back to true.

How to Use the Debug Menu in Balatro

Using the Balatro cheats menu is straightforward, with most functions being self-explanatory. To unlock items in your collection, hover over them and press 1 while the debug menu is open. To add any Balatro joker to your current game, hover over it and press 3. Although limited to five jokers initially, you can turn a joker into a negative by hovering over it in your hand and pressing Q four times, effectively allowing you to have as many jokers as you want during a run.

All Balatro Cheats (Hold Tab to Open Menu)

Cheat / Key	Effect
1	Unlock a Collectible (while hovering over it in the collection)
2	Discover a Collectible (while hovering over it in the collection)
3	Spawn a Collectible (while hovering over it in the collection)
Q	Change Joker Edition (while hovering over it in hand)
H	Isolate Background
J	Play Splash Animation
8	Toggle Cursor
9	Toggle All Tooltips
$10	Adds $10 to Total
+1 Round	Increases the Round by 1
+1 Ante	Increases the Ante by 1
+1 Hand	Adds one additional Hand
+1 Discard	Adds one additional Discard
Boss Reroll	Rerolls the Boss
Background	Removes the Background
+10 Chips	Adds 10 Chips to Total
+10 Mult	Adds 10 Mult to Total
X2 Chips	Doubles Chip Total
X10 Mult	Increases the Mult by 10
Win this Run	Completes the Current Run
Lose this Run	Ends the Current Run
Reset	Resets the Current Run
Jimbo	Makes Jimbo Appear
Jimbo Talk	Makes a Text Box Appear by Jimbo