goddamit, how did i not think of that being the other option instead of just thinking, "oh mustve been a renpy update".Because the dev apparently thought it clever to change the AppData folder name (which doesn't even matter really, it could be a folder named "FuckAll", who cares? What matters is that the system folder name doesn't change!) but your old saves are still around. So I don't have to retype instructions, see post here.
ill blame my stupidity on monday...