How to Fix Run State Leaking Between Runs in a Roguelike

When the previous run's gold or relics show up at the start of a new run, the problem is that you reset some fields but forgot others. Replacing the whole state object in one shot removes that whole class of bug.

How to fix it

1. Make run state a replaceable object

Put everything that is per-run (HP, inventory, floor, gold, active modifiers) into a single RunState instance and assign a brand-new one on run start. Anything that should persist (meta currency, unlocks) lives in a separate, longer-lived object.

2. Reset on the start event, not the end

Initialize the new run when the player presses Start rather than trying to clean up at death. Death paths are easy to skip (quit to menu, crash), so building fresh on start is more reliable.

3. Audit static and singleton fields

Search for static mutable fields and DontDestroyOnLoad objects that hold run data. Move them into the replaceable RunState or explicitly clear them so they cannot leak.

Catching the ones you can't reproduce

The hardest version of this to fix is the one you can't reproduce — it only happens on a player's hardware, OS, driver, or save state, under conditions that simply aren't present on your machine. A report that says “it crashed” or “it froze” gives you nothing to act on, so the bug survives release after release while quietly costing you players.

Automatic error capture closes that gap. Each failure arrives with its full stack trace, the device and OS, the build number, and a breadcrumb trail of what the player did right before it broke, so even a failure you have never seen becomes a specific, reproducible issue. Fold identical failures into one signature ranked by how many players each hits, and your worklist sorts itself worst-first instead of arriving as a stream of vague complaints.

This is where a tool like Bugnet earns its place. Its SDK captures every Unity error automatically with the full stack trace plus device, OS, memory, build, and game-state context, folds duplicates into one grouped issue with an occurrence count, and ties each to the build it first appeared on — so you fix the problem that hurts the most players first and confirm it is gone when its signature disappears from the next release.