Playing I, Cyborg made me think: It’d be cool if all the longer games would have checkpoints in them like Choice of Rebels and Tin Star have. I know those games are longer than I, Cyborg, but I think even when playing a game with I, Cyborgs length it’s kinda frustrating when the easier to mess up parts are at the end of the game and bc of one wrong choice we have to restart the whole game.
I wonder why it isn’t more common to include checkpoints. Does including checkpoints make it harder to create a game? I don’t know much about game developments but my guess would be that this is still easier than including save/load options in the menu.
8 Likes
It’s primarily our game design aesthetic, which doesn’t typically include save points and also doesn’t include a back button.
3 Likes
I personally agree with the need for saves and think that not including save points is a mistake. The effect at least for me for many games is simply that they become unplayable without using a browser where I can just open up duplicate tabs in place of saves. Games that are not offered initially for purchase on this site but only through something like Steam suffer a lot of lost replayability because it is just not worth clicking through till almost the very end just to fix one mistake. There could be an achievement for never using saves which is what some games do anyway, but the Choice of whether to use saves should be up to the player.
16 Likes
The inclusion of checkpoints would probably lead to more people bringing up the idea of including an actual save ability (which would be awesome). So they are not going to do it unfortunately.
I totally understand, but it’s been made clear that saves are not a priority for the company even if it’s a much asked for (and in my opinion—needed) feature. See, some people will tell you that you played the game as it was meant to be played, bad ending and all. They will also argue that you should not be able to go back and reload because it would ruin your experience… So adding a checkpoint in would ruin everything…according to anti-save purists. There are many other reasons as well in another thread. 
Sorry, this is a bit of a touchy subject for me. 
I find the arguments against having saves (any kind of save feature) ridiculous and antiquated (and very micromanaging). I also find it hypocritical as there’s a thread dedicated on this forum to cheating and modding games, which they not only allow to go on but also have some staff in there helping them do it.
9 Likes
Can you describe what you mean by that? How it would be different from savepoints or saved games?
The OP asked for save checkpoints, which are typically specific spots in the game that will save for you. I always hoped for a save anywhere function, like dashingdon.
1 Like
Well, the player doesn’t press a save button, but our games do have a save function like that. The app remembers where you are when you close it, right?
Just for clarity is it mods helping out or staff? Not all mods, like myself, are CoG staff.
This is a quite overdone topic, but I just wanted to point out these since CoG/HG apparently has a different kind of saves in their system.
- Save for “exporting your progression to the next title in the series”
- Checkpoints that will return you to them if you died (or some failure states happened)
- Save as in “Load the game from this point?”
If I’m missing anything, feel free to tell me.
1 Like
In a way I get where the “purists” come from too. But I think checkpoints would be a nice compromise between what we have now for the majority of games and the actual save (or back button). It’s not like the people who like playing the games in one go without saving/loading can’t play Choice of Rebels and Tin Star the way they like but others who wouldn’t necessary want to go through 500k or more words of game play once again just to get to the point where they made a mistake can also enjoy those games.
Also I like @Norilinde’s idea about the achievement, that way so people playing these games the way “they should be” played can still feel kinda revarded for the effort?
3 Likes
It does, but that is not the same. At all. I can’t go back and re-read a section I enjoy at my leisure. I can’t go back and load an earlier save because my mouse or phone glitched out and rushed me to the next page. I can’t go back and pick another dialogue option because the author did not make it clear enough what the actual intent was behind the line until I had already clicked.
It’s been a while since I’ve been in the thread, but I think you are the main one in there. Even if you aren’t paid staff, they allow the thread to exist. They don’t discourage it. If they want to maintain that games should be played as they are, then they should be discouraging this, yes? Why does that thread not get locked?
2 Likes
That’s a false equivalency.
No back button/save system (sorry, I’m still not sure exactly how you want the saves to work or how it’s different from a back button) is not just about “maintaining that games should be played as they are,” it’s a design aesthetic. And we’re not censorious assholes, so AFAIK we’re not going to ban modding games from the forum.
3 Likes
I believe the reason for that is basically “you can do anything you want with the stuff you buy and own.”
It’s the same philosophy when the issue of someone from the other site “hacked and modded” various CoG games in that site.
It’s not actually. We’re just gonna have to agree to disagree about that.
I’m not sure how much more clear I can be about how to save. 
You have a save button and save slots. you have the ability to reload at any point in the game you’ve saved at.
No, I just find it a bit hypocritical.
But this talk is all moot anyway as there won’t be anything implemented.
3 Likes
Thank you @Szaal for making that list.
@Mary_Duffy I personally would prefer option 3 in the above list but I would consider option 2 to be an improvement over how many COG products play out on interfaces like Steam. If @Havenstone will forgive my observation on the use of checkpoints in XOR, I was very grateful for the presence of those checkpoints because of the thought behind including them. However, I did not personally find them very useful when XOR was still in WIP stage because checkpoints could not be used to recover if a bug popped up nor could they be used until the end of a Chapter even if you made a single mistake that doomed the entire playthrough near the start of the Chapter (such as a mistake in week 1 of winter dooming you to either play through 9 more weeks of winter and still end in disaster or restart the entire game which was usually what I did instead).
1 Like
[quote="spun
It’s always weird to have a total stranger tell you you’re morally? aesthetically? not sure, exactly? inconsistent. I’m also not sure what the point here is. Is the idea that we should stop people from modding games (somehow?) in order to be bigger jerks than we currently are, because we are jerks for not implementing a save system? And that we should do this because consistency is the only thing at stake, and if we’re going to be jerks about one thing we should be jerks about everything? Because being a hypocrite is worse than being a jerk? I fully admit we’re jerks and hypocrites.
We’ve talked a lot about implementing a back button, and how we’d do it. I feel like you’re assuming a lot about the company in your comments here. You’ve said over and again what we will and won’t do.
Thanks! That’s clearer, actually. You were sort of describing both that and a back button and I wasn’t sure which you meant, or both or how they’re different from checkpoints. Sorry–I don’t have experience reading IF that has a feature like that. And I’m not really a gamer, so I don’t know a lot about save systems in video games, either.
1 Like
You sound like you’re taking this personally. You shouldn’t. I understand that this is a touchy subject for you as it is for me. We’re just on opposing views. I am not name-calling, nor am I going to be baited into it.
Because this “battle” has been going on for a loooong time, and it’s been made clear in the staff responses about where COG stands on it. Hey, if the company decides to change its mind, I’ll be one of the first to cheer it on. 
I feel that there are a lot of valid reasons the COG would need to reconsider their stance on this particular issue, and those are all in those other Save threads. Perhaps, in time, a good compromise can be reached. I really hope for that.
7 Likes
Hey I was wondering, as a pretty experienced modder of CoG and HG, what you have against mods in particular?
No, I’m not taking it personally at all. I was genuinely curious why you thought we should ban modding/or why you think it’s better for anyone here if we’re jerks rather than hypocrites.
I don’t think we’re on opposing sides of anything. You assumed because I’m staff I’m here to tell you all the reasons we can’t or won’t implement this. I don’t care too much one way or the other about a back button–it’s not a design aesthetic I invented. You’ll notice nowhere in this thread do I defend it. I just said it is the CoG design (in response to the OP, who asked if it was difficult to implement. And specifically, implementing anything at this point is hard because reasons, but I think it’s not technically impossible.) I think there are tons of good reasons for a back button/saves, too. Nothing about the back button/saves is touchy for me.
BUT, I do get annoyed when people assume about what we will or won’t do, and I try not to take that personally. It’s hard not to, when you’re being told to your face (so to speak).
2 Likes
@fairlyfairfighter @Mary_Duffy I have nothing against modding, but when the company line is:
Q) Why isn’t there a “back” button on your games?
A) We’ve considered incorporating an Undo (or Back) button instead, but we found that users would spoil their game, by clicking on every option one at a time and clicking Back, until they found a result they liked the best. It removed all of the dramatic tension; one user described this as a “chore!”It’s tempting to say “well, if it’s a chore, and it ruins the game, then why are you pushing the Back button so much? Just play the game without testing every option first!” But I think people just can’t help themselves; it’s just too hard to resist pressing the Back button when we’ve made the “wrong” choice. And even if we never use the Back button, it undermines tension just knowing that “if I ever get in trouble, I can always Undo…”
as a reason for not implementing a highly asked for feature (a back button or save system as I described above), it kind of doesn’t make sense for them to be ok with modding.
But that is not what this thread is about. It’s asking for a checkpoint system in place for people to reload when they make a decision they don’t like. So let’s not go into old, circular arguments. I’m pretty much done with this; there’s really nothing new to add to the debate. Moreover, it’s not cool for a couple of people to hog a thread. So if there is anything else to say to me personally, then just pm.
3 Likes