Poker is the combat. The blind is the monster. The run climbs the Spire.
This first slice turns Balatro's ordinary blinds into encounters using the real act names, monster names, and move titles from the player's own Slay the Spire 2 installation. A poker score damages the enemy; the enemy's actual move title changes its blind HP target. The encounter label advances through acts as the Balatro ante rises.
Start a normal solo Balatro run and play a poker hand. The overlay names the Spire act, the monster, and its current move. The hand's score chips are shown as enemy HP damage; the move adds a small, data-driven amount to the blind's target. Beat the blind and the next encounter is selected from the player's Slay the Spire 2 data.
For a manual install, place Lovely's winmm.dll in the Balatro install folder, then extract this archive into its own folder under %AppData%\Balatro\Mods (for example, Spiralatro). If Melty already created Spiralatro-0.1.0, keep that folder and replace its contents with this archive. Launch Balatro from Steam and start a solo run. To disable Spiralatro, remove its mod folder. Keep Lovely installed if another mod uses it; remove winmm.dll only when no Lovely mods remain.
The first slice is single-player. It reads Slay the Spire 2's Steam library and supports PCK format 3, verified against the local v0.107.1 install. If that game is missing or uses an unsupported data format, the mod shows a message and leaves Balatro playable without replacing the Spire content.
lovely.toml: Lovely module registration and runtime patch.spiralatro.lua: Steam path discovery, PCK text lookup, encounter selection, and overlay.spiralatro_rules.lua: generated from design/intent_rules.json.The zip contains no Balatro or Slay the Spire 2 game files, art, audio, or extracted data. Its source is provided for review; a redistribution license and remix permission have not been chosen.
The sheets and generated rules pass preflight. Balatro's bundled Lua 5.1 runtime smoke check read real act/enemy/move data from the installed Slay the Spire 2 PCK and applied one intent rule to a simulated blind. The publish scan found no copied game files, secrets, or warnings. Real gameplay after the manifest fix is not yet verified: the first user launch stopped at Lovely's TOML parsing stage because the required [manifest] table was missing. The package now includes it, but there is no post-fix gameplay screenshot yet; do not treat this as a tested playable release until a new run is captured.
The prototype code and design sheets were created for this project. Balatro and Slay the Spire 2 are copyrighted games; their names, localized game text, and all game files remain theirs and are read only from the player's own installations. No third-party art or code is bundled. The final listing license, credits, and remix choice are pending the creator's decision.
