Even worse is the “un-skippable 2 minute cut scene, before the key event you need to complete to get to the save point”.
You don’t create high stakes by making someone repeatedly reread a page in a book, just high blood pressure.
Best thing about the switch is they explicitly designed for this, i.e. there are so many moons in Mario Odyssey because they wanted them to be short enough that you could do a few while on the bus or whatever
Obviously every game doesn't need to be like that but it's cool when they don't require you to have multiple uninterrupted hours, basically impossible to play those if you have kids
The biggest boon to my gaming is definitely how the new consoles and the steam deck will allow you to put the system into stand by and keep playing later.
Yeah has nothing to do with being a multi-billion dollar company that has been at this for decades. Other people just don't LISTEN to your very astute observation that saving game state at any moment is nice to have, and are too lazy to snap their fingers to make it so. You got it.
PSP go had a system wide feature, you could pause and quit any game at any time. It created a temporary save that you could load once, then it deleted itself so you couldn't use it to "save scum"
Why this didn't become standard on every platform is beyond me. We need it.
There you have it. These games are made with a map editor mostly, and if the engine doesn't provide an easy way to save and load, that will never happen. This isn't a slight, because I think it's great non-coders can create stunning visuals now. But it is what it is: an "experience", not a game :P
I remember back in the day that the "correct" opinion to have about "walking simulators" was that they were boring and just straight up not games in some cases. I'm glad the gaming public has moved beyond that.
Anyway, I like games like this that have the level of engagement of Gone Home at least.
Yeah, the first time I played, not long after release, I spent an hour exploring the woods and doing the first house and train puzzles, and I ended up at about 80 minutes on record. Couldn’t find a save option, so I went back to the main menu and quit. Came back later… back at the very start.
It’s really neat! But it definitely wants you to allocate a whole day to appreciating the environment. Most games that do that are polite enough to let you save anywhere.
Most games didn't even have a save option when I grew up. The ones that did also potentially had the option of getting erased/corrupted. So I'll take a save after a story event any day over that.
Saving game state is one of the more complex things in game development, and usually hard to retrofit, if you don't build it with saving everything anytime in mind right away. Much easier to limit it to specific points and just save the player/progression stats and recreate the world from that.
Fine, but after all these years and games that have basically the same mechanics (if not even the same engine), that one should be a solved problem. An implementation detail
Related - I know it’s more convenient to have games auto save, but those that don’t even give you the option to save and just do it behind the scenes low key give me anxiety
Equally devs that do auto saves but on a timer and not after key events, who hurt you (my one complaint about bg3 is I keep assuming it’ll auto save after fights)
I think they do this so that the player understands and accepts responsibility) Although to be honest, when I played #DeadSpace on the #PS3, it tired me a little. Because when it was necessary to take a break, and I was far from the checkpoint, I did not want to go through this section again.
The ones that insisted that games should be *CINEMATIC* and *INMERSIVE* so you waste time makeing realistic pores in someones face rether then haveing a game that actualy flows well without it being REALLY rail-roaded.
"State of Decay" nags me when I try to exit, "you're gameplay may not be saved." But there's no way to save it, it autosaves at seemingly random points! Also, why can't I go back to a previous save when I didn't mess things up in my camp!?
Comments
You don’t create high stakes by making someone repeatedly reread a page in a book, just high blood pressure.
Even if it is a narrative tool etc, respect people’s time. Sometimes shit happens and you need to stop playing. Nice to save progress.
Why this didn't become standard on every platform is beyond me. We need it.
Disclaimer: I haven't tried it, I don't know how well it works
Ethan Carter doesn't have this excuse, it just needs to save your position in the world and story flags 95% of the time.
Great recs!
Also "Dear Esther" somewhat in the similar vein.
Anyway, I like games like this that have the level of engagement of Gone Home at least.
> Continue to set fields in your SaveGame object until it contains all of the data you want to store in the saved game file.
https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/saving-and-loading-your-game-in-unreal-engine
https://askagamedev.tumblr.com/post/182917041234/what-goes-into-deciding-whether-to-use-checkpoint
I have so much shit to talk about game devs, all of them, and all gamers, because I'm a bitter derp. But this is something where I'll defend them :P
It also makes me wonder if I just don't know how menu's work and there actually is a save option somewhere.
I can’t play for 3h until the next save man I have a life pls
'Games for NEETs'..
but still, not everyone has that time
'Course, that cuts down on online multiplayer, which seems to be where everybody has been focused for a while.