V11.45.14 Major Update: The Merchant and a Full Experience Overhaul

We are jumping straight from V0.1.3 to V11.45.14.

No, the decimal point is not missing. This release brings together a large number of player-facing changes made since the previous public build: a new character and complete card pool, redesigned shop and card interfaces, faster startup and loading, and extensive stability work across combat, the map, events, rewards, saves and replays.

Important: In-progress saves from older versions
- Because the run state, save system and scene flow have been substantially rebuilt, in-progress saves created by V0.1.3 and other older builds cannot be continued.
- We recommend finishing your current run before updating. If the new version detects an incompatible in-progress save, it will safely remove that run so you can start a new game normally.

New fourth character: The Merchant
- Added the Merchant, a fourth playable character whose run revolves around Residual Silver, trading and account management.
- Added 70 Merchant-exclusive cards featuring new mechanics involving payments, debt, delayed draws, final health digits and treasures.
- The Merchant starts with the Old Shop Deed relic. Every shop node becomes a Merchant-exclusive shop, and permanent upgrades purchased there are recorded in the deed for the rest of the run.
- The exclusive shop offers 10 upgrade categories, including energy and draw each turn, post-combat healing and Residual Silver, maximum health, Silver from visiting nodes, card removal, and card, relic and boss relic bundles.
- Repeatable upgrades become more expensive with every purchase, creating a choice between immediate power, long-term growth and keeping Silver in reserve.

Shops, cards and interface updates
- Rebuilt the standard shop presentation with a new perspective display and improved interactions.
- Added a dedicated Merchant shop interface, item artwork and reward selection flow.
- Unified card illustration borders and layouts, added rarity frames and expanded the usable space for card rules text.
- Improved card titles, costs, tags, keyword highlighting and colors, including fixes for character and card keywords that did not receive the correct color.
- Improved navigation icons, map nodes, the card viewer, detail popups and layering between stacked interfaces.
- Added clearer feedback when obtaining, removing, upgrading or transforming cards.
- Improved first-open and scrolling behavior for announcements, achievements, the compendium and deck views.
- Sped up the penguin tutorial dialogue to reduce waiting during repeated runs.

Startup, loading and runtime performance
- The main menu now appears earlier and becomes interactive sooner, while non-essential platform services load later.
- Improved the path from character selection into a run with non-blocking fades and less work performed after the start button is pressed.
- Reduced noticeable first-entry stalls in shops, map nodes, announcements, achievements, the compendium and card lists.
- Optimized combat action queues, card animation, card and hand resource caches, and state snapshot hot paths for smoother long battles.
- Reworked resource caching and release policies to reduce repeated loading and improve stability with the larger content set.

Stability and flow fixes
- Rebuilt core flow across combat, cards, status effects, relics, potions, events, the map, shops, rewards and run state so each system has a consistent source of truth.
- Reworked scene transitions, run setup, checkpoints and saves to reduce stalls, duplicate resolution and state desynchronization.
- Upgraded replays to the new pipeline and fixed inconsistencies in combat setup, target selection and display state.
- Fixed cases where card, relic, potion and interface animations could access objects after their scene had exited.
- Fixed edge cases in rewards, shops, treasure rooms, events, rest sites and combat resolution.
- Fixed popup layering, card depth, reused deck-view data, feedback queues and interface refresh issues.
- Strengthened validation for older data, reward formats and abnormal saves. Older in-progress saves that cannot be continued safely are now blocked explicitly.

Text and language
- Revised character, card, relic, keyword and interface text to make conditions, costs and timing clearer.
- Corrected Merchant keyword presentation and colors and standardized payment wording.
- V11.45.14 currently supports Simplified Chinese only. Other languages remain visible in the language list but cannot yet be selected, preventing unfinished translations from being used in-game.

This is a very large jump from V0.1.3 to V11.45.14. If you encounter problems with card effects, the Merchant shop, interface display, loading saves, replays, loading or combat flow, please report the location, steps and a screenshot when possible.