zh_CN translation not applied — English placeholder text, plus "ERROR" in the Collection page

[By990920]

Environment

• Balatro: 1.0.1o (Steam)
• Steamodded: 1.0.0-beta-1814a
• All-In-Jest: 0.7.0c
• Language: 简体中文 (zh_CN)

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Issue 1 — zh_CN translation not applied (both in-run and in Collection)

With the game set to 简体中文, several All-In-Jest cards do not show their zh_CN translation and display English placeholder text instead. This happens both during a run and in the main-menu Collection.

Affected cards:

• Astral cards (e.g. c_aij_alkaid) — the poker-hand slot shows English
• mute_joker — shows Hand
• handsome_joker — shows [enhancement] [rank]
• the_journey (boss blind) — shows Suit
• Also affected: the_auroch, the_heart, the_herald, trophy_kill, rahu, ketu

The zh_CN entries do exist (e.g. k_aij_hand_placeholder = "指定牌型", k_aij_suit_placeholder = "花色" in localization/zh_CN.lua), so this is a lookup bug, not missing translations.

Root cause

These descriptions embed runtime-dependent values (poker hand / suit / rank / card) via loc_vars. When the runtime value is present, the mod falls back to placeholder keys such as k_aij_hand_placeholder.

The placeholder keys are defined under misc.extra_joker_dictionary in the localization files, but the loc_vars fallback calls localize(key) without the extra_joker_dictionary misc-category argument:

-- current (wrong): resolves against misc.dictionary, key not found -> default English
localize('k_aij_hand_placeholder')

-- correct pattern, used elsewhere in the mod (youve_got_mail, baddata, jerko...):
localize('k_aij_hand_placeholder', 'extra_joker_dictionary')

Because the lookup misses extra_joker_dictionary, the zh_CN value is never reached and the English/default text is shown — even during a run.

Suggested fix

Pass 'extra_joker_dictionary' as the second argument on every localize('k_aij_*_placeholder') call in the affected loc_vars:

localize('k_aij_hand_placeholder', 'extra_joker_dictionary')
localize('k_aij_suit_placeholder', 'extra_joker_dictionary')
localize('k_aij_card_placeholder', 'extra_joker_dictionary')
localize('k_aij_rank_placeholder', 'extra_joker_dictionary')

Affected files (in Items/): the 14 astral cards, rahu.lua, ketu.lua, mute_joker.lua, handsome_joker.lua, the_journey.lua, the_auroch.lua, the_heart.lua, the_herald.lua, trophy_kill.lua.

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Issue 2 — "ERROR" text in the Collection page (main menu, outside a run)

In the main-menu Collection, the same cards additionally show the literal string ERROR in their descriptions (e.g. 将ERROR对准). This is a separate, remaining problem:

• These loc_vars depend on runtime-only data that does not exist in the Collection UI (e.g. card.ability.consumeable.hand, assigned in the ConsumableType.inject_card / set_ability wrapper in Utils/hooks.lua:842-854; G.GAME.current_round.aij_the_journey_blind.selected_suit; G.GAME.current_round.jest_handsome_joker_card).
• Balatro's localize(key, cat) returns the literal string 'ERROR' (not nil) when the key is missing, so even with the placeholder fallback in place, missing runtime values still leak ERROR into the Collection.
• the_journey defines collection_loc_vars (Items/Blinds/Boss/the_journey.lua:20), but Steamodded never calls collection_loc_vars; the blind Collection popup goes through create_UIBox_blind_popup → blind.vars, so that function is effectively dead code and does not prevent the ERROR.

Suggested fix

• Detect the Collection context (collection card areas are created with config.collection = true) and render placeholder text instead of running runtime lookups, or
• Add a helper that checks G.localization.misc[cat][key] before calling localize() and falls back to a placeholder key when missing.

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Note (reporting transparency)

This issue report was written with the help of an AI assistant (opencode) for technical investigation and wording. I am only responsible for the Chinese (zh_CN) translation itself and am not a coder, so I may not be able to answer detailed implementation questions. The technical root causes above were verified by reading the mod's source code with the assistant's help.