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Saving Games

chronos · 2000-08-23T16:37:03

I once came upon a discussion on free saves versus save spots. Free saves allow players to save the game at any point in time. Save spots allow saving only at certain strategic locations. Free saves are said to encourage a kind of compulsive attitude towards saving for safety, while save spots are criticised for forcing players to look for the latest spot to avoid losing progress whenever they feel like taking a break from the game. What about the compromise? Save spots would, as usual, provide the player with persistent saves. Away from a save spot the player could simply suspend the game to resume at a later time (similar to pausing the game, except you don''t have to keep it running). Given that suspended game data is gone as soon as you resume the game it cannot be used as a safety net. Players can suspend the game at any time while still retaining a certain sense of danger through potential loss of progress. Granted this will not satisfy those who present other arguments against save spots. However, those who decide to make use of them should consider the above enhancement.

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by chronos August 01, 2000 08:06 PM

47 comments, last by chronos 23 years, 10 months ago

outRider

852

August 03, 2000 03:05 PM

Personally I like free saving because in certain games the scenarios take a long time to complete so you would have to put in an hour and a half to 2 hours or whatever before you could save. The game I''m thinking about is Ogre Battle on the SNES, but when the PS version came out it offered free saving and I abused it from time to time like everyone else.

The happy medium that I see is in a game like Final Fantasy, with save spots in dungeons and caves and anywhere that invovles an actual challenge and danger of dying, and free saves on the world map, where it doesn''t really matter and can''t be abused, because if you left a dungeon to go save before you fought the boss you would have to walk all the way out and then save and then go through the dungeon again, so it wouldn''t be worth it.

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- outRider -

pacman

122

August 03, 2000 05:56 PM

Or maybe it is worth it? That''s the kind of loss Paul was talking about: to free save, you lose something small. In this case, it''s x minutes and the annoying enemies on the trip there and back.

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"What's the story with your face, son?!?"

-------------------------------------------The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.Exodus 14:14

chronos

100

Author

August 03, 2000 08:09 PM

quote: Original post by Paul Cunningham

What about setting the character back everytime they manually save, say they lose something like XP.

While I don''t mind certain kinds of restrictions on game functions such as saving, I really don''t like the idea of attaching a penalty to these.

Delisk

122

August 07, 2000 07:02 PM

Save spot are good, exept for one thing....they brake the atmosphere!

Look at this!

You are walking in this hanted house full of zombie, and all of a suddens there id this strange yellow spot on the ground.

I woulb be fun to se save spot as a part of the game and not only strange object!

You are planing a house in a game...well here my idea use commons object than you can find a bit evrywere as save spot.

Lets say mirror! You find them at regular basic, chamber, bathroom, salons, ect! if you use them as save spot it will not break the game! Wehn the player load the game he would walk out of the mirror.....

Maybe this suck maybe this rule....

Delisk

SonicSilcion

122

August 07, 2000 10:02 PM

Common objects as save points. Sounds good, as having seen everything from crystals to spinning question marks, I believe most are quite silly. But you are still left with a problem all exhibit, how do you explain them for every circumstance? Somehow I doubt you''ll find a mirror in a cave, unless you meant anything that''s reflective.

----Sonic Silicon----

Anonymous

August 07, 2000 10:22 PM

I wish more people would try to be creative when doing save spots. Try to make them a part of the story or at least give some kind of reason why they would actually exsist.

Atavist

122

August 08, 2000 12:43 AM

Ill throw my idea into the ring.
How about saving is a spell/ability, that you can only use so many times before you run out of magic power or strength or whatever. At least until you get somewhere safe to restore yourself, or waste a restoring item, or wait till you recharge (or however your game system works)
Or just the same idea, special items you buy, are portable one-time save points, you can make them expensive to balance it as you see fit.

With this you could free save anywhere, but you have to be smart about it, forced into be conservative.

One person said that the games industry is "a transfer of funds from the rich to the lucky"

Just because the church was wrong doesn't mean Galileo wasn't a heretic.It just means he was a heretic who was right.

chronos

100

Author

August 08, 2000 06:54 PM

I like the idea of save spots matching the atmosphere of the game, but only for aesthetic reasons. Save spots should be readily identifiable as such. I see no need to explain their existence or pretend they''re a natural part of the environment. In fact, save spots are quite artificial within the context of the game''s internal reality and should therefore be separate from it. Save spots are part of the interface; they serve the player, not the character.

SonicSilcion

122

August 09, 2000 11:23 AM

I got the perfect idea for an idetifiable, yet enviromentally matching save points. A symbol! A symbol can be painted, printed, cast in metal, carved from wood, carved in rock, etc. On top of that, if you want to allow the player to create a save point, they can create it from/using an item in their inventory. For the sake of gameplay, I think that the symbol could have a pulsing glow around it. Hey, if they can make objects light up in Thief an Deus Ex, why not in our game designs?

----Sonic Silicon----

----Sonic Silicon----

SonicSilcion

122

August 12, 2000 11:56 PM

Erg! Another topic stagnated by my hand. So I''m just posting to bring this back to the top.

BTW, anyone like the symbol idea?

----Sonic Silicon----