Small update today? Whats that about?

So I'm pretty sure I was close to the end of the game, however, I went to continue playing today to find all my save files for the game gone, and they also aren't in the cloud (same device so either Steam or the game decided to "purge" them). I had hoped that I could skip all the dialogue if read, but also no dice... Skip mode does not skip (and the game has no option for skipping dialogue you've read but the game thinks you haven't like most VNs do). I'm not reading almost the entire game again... As such...

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What the heck is this all about? It's way too big to be a mere bugfix.

I remember seeing this show up on Steam quite some time ago, but heard that the localisation needed more editing, and that's why the game was in Early Access. At that time I passed on it, only to pick it up now that it's a full release, and on sale, and s...