Hey everyone, I'm not quite sure where to begin. The catastrophic save-progress-loss bug that appeared in this update — I can't possibly apologize enough. ...I'm utterly exhausted, and this has been a brutal lesson learned. I've done everything I could. Let me briefly explain what happened:
Last weekend's update involved three save-related changes at the same time: cloud save fixes, save path restructuring, and the reset-cycle feature. The combination of these three changes caused an inexplicable save corruption issue. I rushed to fix it immediately, but in the process, the AI pulled a massive screw-up — it overwrote over ten days' worth of card interaction and combat logic code with a much older version. (Of course, I take full responsibility — solo dev, got way too sloppy with version control.)
The result: the save-corruption bug was fixed in code, but I couldn't ship the build (I was literally in tears). Because the combat system refactor, the Mandate of Heaven and talent chain rework — all of those had to be re-tested and re-fixed one by one at high intensity.
I am truly, deeply sorry. As a player myself, nothing pisses me off more than losing save progress. In any case, I sacrificed my liver and managed to scrape together a version to push out. There will likely still be some bugs in this build, but hopefully nothing as severe as losing your save progress. Please give me a bit more time — I'll fix them all.
🆕 New Systems & Content
- Stardust System introduced: At the end of each run, stardust is tallied in real time based on your performance. The better you fight and the higher the difficulty, the more stardust you earn.
- Star Draw · Stardust Gacha: The Star Draw feature is now available in the Star Chart. Spend stardust to draw star units, with comet-flight animations and video sequences. First multi-draw is free (as a small token of apology). Accessible from the main menu and Star Chart.
- Copper & Stardust combined display: The top-right HUD now shows copper and stardust in a single bar. Click the "?" to view all stardust earning methods, and real-time stardust animations and floating text will appear when you gain stardust.
- Settlement Panel: A new post-battle settlement panel now appears after surrendering, conceding, or winning, showing a detailed breakdown and the total stardust earned in that run.
- Seal Star · Star Sealing: Spend stardust in the Star Chart to seal specific stars. Sealed stars' talents will no longer appear in awakening picks or banner pole pools.
- Achievement overhaul: Added Lv.5 Seal Star (Star Chart) and Lv.6 Imperial Jade Seal (Cabinet) unlocks; added a batch of new achievements (including hidden ones, with some old achievements reclassified as hidden and displayed as blue achievement bars); reworked achievement sorting; adjusted achievement point values and level thresholds. Returning players will automatically receive catch-up level-up animations based on current achievement points.
- Drill deaths & Naihe Bridge: Units that die during Drill (Yanwu) can now be revived at Naihe Bridge.
- Buddha Statue gold-quality awakening fix: Some non-Avatar units were able to awaken to red quality via the Buddha Statue — this has been fixed.
🔧 Disaster Rollback Recovery
Due to the AI erroneously rolling back over ten days of code, the following content had to be recovered, re-tested, and re-fixed one by one after the disaster. Everything should be largely back to normal now, but omissions are very possible. If you run into issues, I can only say I'm deeply grateful for your patience, and I may not be able to get to your feedback as quickly as usual. My sincerest apologies.
- Mandate of Heaven Multi-Forms: Mandate·Demon display and logic fixes (speed/HP display, faction icons, card talent panels, banner duration); Fengjian (Seal) status fixed.
- Talent chain recovery: Over ten combat talents — Duo'ai, Chongzhen, Guimou, Lianzhu, Suxi, Dujiang, Sishi, Lianying, Miaoji, Dongfeng and more — had their chain triggers and animations recovered one by one. Whiff protection and dedup logic synced as well.
- Armor system split: Recovery of the fix where temporary armor no longer stacks with permanent armor.
- UI interaction fix: Recovery of the fix where scrolling through the deck inventory or Codex no longer accidentally triggers card zoom.
☁️ Save System & Infrastructure Fixes (hoping for the best)
- Cloud Save switched to Steam Auto-Cloud: No longer using code-based API calls — now running through Steam's built-in auto-sync. More stable. AppID corrected to the release version.
- meta.json atomic write + corruption recovery: Meta-progress saves now write to a temp file first, then atomically replace the original, preventing corruption from interrupted writes. If corruption does occur, the system will automatically fall back to a backup.
- Codex / Star Chart moved into meta.json: From now on, Codex and Star Chart progress lives in the meta save and won't be lost even if the save file is deleted.
After shipping Friday's update, my plan was to finally slow down and think about late-game content and features to flesh out — which is why you'll see this build contains some half-finished work. I simply had no choice but to ship it as-is. I'll probably put up a Bilibili video later to explain in more detail (likely very late — I've pulled an all-nighter without even noticing). I'll update this post with the link when it's up. Once again, I'm so sorry, and thank you for your patience.