Bloons TD 6 Auto Play

An automation bot for Bloons Tower Defense 6, written in Rust. It uses screen capture and Tesseract OCR to detect the current round number, then executes pre-configured instruction scripts to place and upgrade towers automatically.

Disclaimer

This project is an unofficial automation tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or supported by Ninja Kiwi. Automating gameplay may violate Ninja Kiwi's Terms of Service and could result in account action, including permanent bans. By using this software you accept full responsibility for any consequences and agree that we (Jazzmoon) are not liable for any damages or account actions arising from its use.

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Table of Contents

• Bloons TD 6 Auto Play
  • Disclaimer
  • Table of Contents
  • Prerequisites
  • Installing Rust (rustup)
    • Linux / macOS
    • Windows
  • Installing Tesseract OCR
    • Linux
    • macOS
    • Windows (MSYS2)
  • Building the Bot
  • Game Setup
  • Usage
    • Interactive Mode
    • CLI Arguments
    • Location Finder Utility
  • Configuration

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Prerequisites

• Bloons TD 6 installed (Steam or standalone)
• Rust toolchain (via rustup) — see below
• Tesseract OCR — see below
• A supported screen resolution: 1920×1080 or 2560×1440
  • Other resolutions require you to create a matching config/<WIDTHxHEIGHT>/ directory

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Installing Rust (rustup)

The bot is built with Rust (edition 2021). The recommended way to install Rust is via rustup.

Linux / macOS

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

Follow the on-screen instructions, then reload your shell:

source "$HOME/.cargo/env"

Verify:

rustc --version   # e.g. rustc 1.78.0
cargo --version   # e.g. cargo 1.78.0

Windows

Download and run the installer from https://rustup.rs/. Accept the defaults. After installation, open a new command prompt and verify:

rustc --version
cargo --version

Note for Windows users: You will also need either the MSVC build tools (Visual Studio Build Tools) or the MinGW-w64 toolchain from MSYS2 (recommended for this project because it is also required for Tesseract — see below).

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Installing Tesseract OCR

The bot uses rusty-tesseract which requires the Tesseract library (libtesseract) to be installed on your system.

Linux

Install Tesseract and its development headers using your distribution's package manager.

Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install tesseract-ocr libtesseract-dev libleptonica-dev pkg-config

Fedora/RHEL:

sudo dnf install tesseract tesseract-devel leptonica-devel pkgconf

Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S tesseract tesseract-data-eng leptonica pkg-config

After installing, ensure the TESSDATA_PREFIX is set if Tesseract cannot find its language data:

export TESSDATA_PREFIX=/usr/share/tessdata   # adjust path as needed

Note: The bot ships its own custom-trained data file (tessdata/btd6.traineddata) for better accuracy on in-game text. When this file is present, the bot automatically sets TESSDATA_PREFIX to the local tessdata/ directory and uses btd6+eng as the OCR language. No manual configuration is required.

macOS

brew install tesseract

pkg-config is also needed during compilation:

brew install pkg-config

Windows (MSYS2)

For Windows, the recommended approach is to use MSYS2 to provide the required libraries. See windows-setup.md for full step-by-step instructions. A summary is below.

1. Download and install MSYS2 from https://www.msys2.org/. Uncheck "Run MSYS2 now" at the end of the installer.

2. Open Command Prompt and add the MSYS2 binaries to your PATH (adjust the path if you chose a non-default install location):

   setx PATH "C:\msys64\mingw64\bin;C:\msys64\usr\bin;%PATH%"
   setx TESSDATA_PREFIX "C:\msys64\mingw64\share\tessdata"

   Close and reopen the command prompt to apply the changes.

3. Open MSYS2 MinGW 64-bit and install the required packages:

   pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-leptonica \
             mingw-w64-x86_64-tesseract-ocr \
             mingw-w64-x86_64-tesseract-data-eng \
             mingw-w64-x86_64-pkg-config

4. Verify the libraries are visible to pkg-config:

   pkg-config --cflags --libs lept tesseract

   Expected output (paths may differ):

   -IC:/msys64/mingw64/include -IC:/msys64/mingw64/include/leptonica -LC:/msys64/mingw64/lib -lleptonica -ltesseract -larchive -lcurl
   

5. Install the MinGW-w64 Rust target so cargo uses the right linker:

   rustup target add x86_64-pc-windows-gnu
   rustup default stable-x86_64-pc-windows-gnu

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Building the Bot

Clone the repository, then build a release binary:

git clone https://github.com/Jazzmoon/btd6_autoplay.git
cd btd6_autoplay
cargo build --release

The compiled binary is placed in target/release/btd6_autoplay (Linux/macOS) or target\release\btd6_autoplay.exe (Windows).

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Game Setup

Before launching the bot, configure your game:

1. Run Bloons TD 6 in fullscreen at one of the supported resolutions (1920×1080 or 2560×1440).

2. Enable auto-start in the game options so rounds begin automatically after the bot places towers.

3. Navigate to the map you want to automate and leave the game on the loading/pre-round screen.

4. The recommended in-game knowledge upgrades for the default map scripts are:

   • Free Dart Monkey
   • Additional $200 starting cash
   • Half of 1st Military Monkey cost
   • Military Monkey Upgrade Discounts

   These are not mandatory — adjust the timing in your map config if you don't have them.

5. Ensure the game window is not minimized before running the bot.

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Usage

Run the binary from the repository root directory so it can locate the config/ and tessdata/ directories:

./target/release/btd6_autoplay [OPTIONS]

The bot sleeps for a few seconds after startup (default: 5 s) so you can switch focus to the game window.

Interactive Mode

Run the bot with no arguments to be guided through map, difficulty, and gamemode selection via interactive prompts:

./target/release/btd6_autoplay

CLI Arguments

Flag	Short	Description	Default
--map <NAME>	-m	Map name (must match a file in config/<RES>/maps/)	interactive prompt
--difficulty <DIFF>	-d	Difficulty: easy, medium, or hard	interactive prompt
--gamemode <MODE>	-g	Gamemode (e.g. standard, chimps, half_cash)	interactive prompt
--number <N>	-n	Number of games to play before exiting (-1 = unlimited)	-1
--sleep <SECS>	-s	Seconds to wait before the bot activates	5
--location		Launch the location finder utility instead of the bot	—
--log-level <LEVEL>		Logging verbosity: debug, info, notice, warn, error	warn

Example — run Dark Castle, Easy, Standard, 10 games:

./target/release/btd6_autoplay \
  --map "Dark Castle" \
  --difficulty easy \
  --gamemode standard \
  --number 10

Location Finder Utility

./target/release/btd6_autoplay --location

Prints cursor coordinates relative to the game window on each click. Use the reported (x, y) values when writing place instructions in a map config. See maps-config.md for the full list of controls.

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Configuration

All configuration lives in the config/ directory. See maps-config.md for full documentation covering every field, all available hotkey names, how to calibrate a new screen resolution, and the complete map scripting reference.

config/
├── General.yaml                # Window search terms
├── Hotkeys.yaml                # In-game hotkey bindings
├── 1920x1080/
│   ├── Settings.yaml           # UI element coordinates for 1080p
│   └── maps/
│       ├── DarkCastle.yaml
│       └── Logs.yaml
└── 2560x1440/
    ├── Settings.yaml           # UI element coordinates for 1440p
    └── maps/
        ├── DarkCastle.yaml
        └── Logs.yaml