v0.5.6

This is a massive stability and realism release. The trial pipeline now runs end-to-end without dead-ends, the whole game has been scrubbed of "video-gamey" combat language, and Case 06 is in.

New Content

• AddedNew caseState v. Reyes — construction site trespass. - Firm management UI on the Career Dashboard. - Communications Panel for case messages. - 4 new character sketches and an expanded juror silhouette pool. - Juror silhouette portraits in voir dire. - Floating "Kyle B." note on the main menu.

Trial Loop — Now Actually Plays Through

• Full trial pipeline wired from jury selection through post-trial resolution. - Arraignment phase added; first-appearance → arraignment transition fixed. - Post-trial summary screen now shows up after a verdict (previously orphaned). - Sentencing tab unlocks at the right time and records correctly. - Opening, defense-case, and closing-argument simulators no longer dead-end when state is mid-load — added fallbacks and escape hatches. - Mistrial, plea, and loss outcomes now produce real consequences instead of leaving you in limbo. - Career progression unblocked at every metric-bump point. - Missed hearings now surface; the calendar scanner actually fires on day-tick. - Motion rulings resolve inline and bind to case state correctly. - Brady modal wired up; detective gives responses.

Realism Pass (huge)

• Removed Ace Attorney–style names and references. - Stripped combat terminology, D&D-style skill checks, "score / draft / hidden traits" framing, and "spin narrative" chaos labels across the entire UI. - Rewrote negotiation, voir dire, closing argument, discovery, financial, motion, ethics, sentencing, bail, and chaos copy in plain attorney-sim language. - Softened gamey cross-exam feedback. - Cleaned tutorial momentum language and trial tab headers. - ER 403 standard correctly referenced in the motion checklist.

Investigation

• Lead outcome display, case-specific leads, and phase gating. - Weekly investigator auto-discovery (Mondays) now uses a stable UTC-based weekday, so it triggers the same regardless of your local timezone.

Voir Dire

• "Confirm Seated Jury" no longer blocks defense while prosecution still has peremptories — only the actual turn flag and juror count gate it. - Juror silhouettes in the panel.

Save / Load

• Full round-trip persistence overhaul — many slices (legal practice, in-court session, arraignment, communications, time tracking, billing audit, tutorial, calendar integration, etc.) now properly sanitize and restore. - Maps no longer get dropped on save. - Mistrial status, mistrial outcome, suppressed/Brady flags now persist correctly. - Non-ASCII text in save exports/imports handled correctly. - Save-size guard added.

Daily Cycle

• Days no longer "phantom-advance" when the daily execution overlay re-mounts with an empty queue (e.g. returning from a case workspace or trial). - Weekday chaos events use UTC, so behavior is timezone-independent. - Ethics violation fines now actually deduct from your checking account. - Ethics violations list capped at 500 (lifetime count preserved) — no more unbounded save growth.

Money & Career

• Career stage promotions trigger reliably at every metric milestone. - Trust-temptation infinite loop fixed. - Trust account reconciliation correct on plea outcomes. - Balance clamps and NaN guards across financial paths.

UI / Accessibility

• WCAG AA contrast on secondary and muted text. - 12px minimum text size; added missing aria-labels. - Error boundaries on all major game screens — a single broken sub-panel won't take down the whole view. - Standardized button styles (AmbiButton) and card-selector focus states across courtroom UI. - Notification IDs no longer collide when several fire in the same instant. - Glossary panel has its own local search state and clears on close.

Performance

• Glossary list selector memoized — eliminates a major re-render storm whenever the glossary was open or mounted. - Tailwind safelist trimmed.

Determinism

• All court simulators (objection rolls, Daubert hearings, frivolous-motion checks, mistrial motions, etc.) now use seeded RNG. Same save + same actions = same outcomes. No more wall-clock leaks into gameplay.

Build / Engine

• Migrated from Create React App to Vite (faster loads, smaller bundle). - Upgraded to Electron 39 and electron-builder 26.

Security

• Patched tmp path-traversal advisory (build-time only, no runtime player impact).