What's New

New Feature

ECM-R now provides English and neutral-Spanish localization for overlay controls, hotkey feedback, release notices, and static BASS startup errors. Runtime language changes take effect on the following frame so the overlay remains internally consistent while switching languages.

The release adds cached editable UTF-8 translation bundles at ecm-r/translations/en.ini and ecm-r/translations/es.ini. Placeholder validation and safe English or compiled-default fallbacks keep missing or malformed bundle entries from preventing startup.

The [config] language = en|es setting is now persisted and repaired when it is missing or invalid. Post-build and CI checks also verify that both translation files are included in the packaged runtime, making deployment failures easier to catch before installation.

An optional manually triggered GitHub Actions workflow now builds Debug | Win-x86, verifies the DLL, ASI, and PDB, and uploads a debug artifact. This provides a repeatable diagnostic build without changing the normal Release workflow used for NFSU2 deployment.

Editable translation bundles are now namespaced under ecm-r/translations/ instead of using a shared location. This reduces collisions with other mods while preserving the documented runtime layout and filenames.

ANSI-origin Windows and BASS path diagnostics are converted to UTF-8 before localized startup message boxes display them. Users can therefore receive localized setup errors without losing diagnostic text from the underlying Windows APIs.

The existing in-game movie muting option is now promoted from Experimental to validated normal functionality, exposed in the Actions menu, and enabled by default for fresh configurations and migrations. This gives supported comic-style movie sequences consistent protection from conflicting custom music without requiring a hidden experimental control.

Movie-muting persistence is now canonical under [config], while the empty Experimental menu container is hidden from the current UI and retained only as an internal entry point. Configuration migration honors an existing canonical value and promotes obsolete placements to true when no canonical value exists.

AGENTS.md and docs/application-context.md were synchronized with the four-agent workflow, authoritative policy ownership, and current build/runtime facts. This keeps contributor guidance aligned with the behavior and packaging documented for ECM-R.
Updated CHANGELOG.md for v0.5.15-alpha.
Updated README.md and BUILDING.md to document the manually triggered debug workflow and its diagnostic artifact.
Updated docs/releases/v0.5.15-alpha.md. The release documentation preserves the ECM-R / ECM / BttrDrgn attribution lineage and the established runtime filename contract.

Release | Win-x86 build validation remains covered by GitHub Actions; a local Windows build was unavailable on this macOS host.
Frontend/loading/racing/overlay/config runtime validation was not runnable on this macOS host; affected documentation, translation paths, and workflow checks were reviewed against the repository contracts.
Verified the version bump, changelog section structure, release link, translation packaging paths, and Debug workflow output checks.

The manually triggered debug artifact is for diagnostics and does not replace the normal Release package. The runtime still requires ecm-r.x86.asi, ecm-r.x86.ini, bass.dll, and the namespaced translation bundles in their established locations.

Full Changelog: v0.5.14-alpha...v0.5.15-alpha