Three QA-driven UX fixes from playtest:

  1. Scene transitions used to flash a half-second of empty Unity scene between Combat -> NodeMap (post-victory click). Root cause was that SceneTransitioner faded to fully opaque BLACK, so any sub-frame where the fade canvas alpha briefly dropped revealed the empty default scene underneath.

    Fix: SceneTransitioner now loads Resources/UI/loading_bg.png on construction (a generated cyberpunk loading-screen texture: scan lines, drifting circuit traces, deep red + teal accents on near- black). Faded image is the loading_bg sprite tinted by alpha, so even a partial-alpha frame shows the loading art rather than the default Unity skybox.

    Also added a subtle “LOADING” text pip in the lower-right that fades in/out with the cover, letting the player know the system isn’t frozen during longer scene builds.

    Falls back to the legacy solid-black behavior if loading_bg.png is missing (cold install before art bake).

  2. Post-event outcome popup was a flat dark grey background with a flat green CONTINUE button — broke the visual continuity from the event-choice screen. Rewritten to use the same event banner art as the choice screen (cached on pendingEventSprite at choice time), a SciFiMenuKit panel with amber accent border, OUTCOME header with shadow + outline (matching the EventTitle treatment from the choice screen), and a sci-fi green CONTINUE button.

  3. Shop scene buttons updated to the sci-fi standard:

    • Card BUY buttons: SciFiMenuKit green/grey accent based on affordability
    • Gear BUY buttons: same treatment
    • LEAVE SHOP: sci-fi red/orange accent
    • REST tile: dark glass + green accent border, REST title in accent color
    • UPGRADE tile: dark glass + violet accent border, UPGRADE title in accent color
    • BACK button (rest, no upgradeable cards): sci-fi grey accent

    No more flat solid-color buttons in shop or rest scenes.

New asset: tools/generate_loading_bg.py (one-shot generator), and Resources/UI/loading_bg.png (~660KB cyberpunk loading-state texture).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) [email protected]

Commit 2fc697f by astafford8488.