Saves have been a widely requested feature for about seven or so years now and they show up regularly as something that is desired both on this forum and in reviews outside of it. Steam players created a third-party save editor programme in order to combat the lack of in-game save features. I dare to say it’s been something commonly desirable, honestly.
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Without a proper market survey even CoG’s opinion is at best an educated guess, however, I don’t think most people consider the lack of a save/checkpoint system to be part of the core ChoiceScript experience.
If you ask around, and there have been threads in this very forum about it, most people will mention the focus on relationship, customization and engaging narrative, and perhaps even stat balancing.
Another reason I don’t really believe this is the main reason is because you can confirm an option by sliding your finger on it. Whenever I’ve seen this feature mentioned was to disparage it, and it was never requested for before being implemented. You can scavenge the forum after it if you’d like. This feature causes more harm than good, often the cause of an accidental choice. It runs diametrically opposed to the design principle of making each choice purposeful, and yet the feature is still there with no option to turn off.
Edit: it’s now possible to turn off the sliding feature.
I don’t mean to blame Dan at all. I don’t think I’d be any different in his place. But CoG is a company, not a one man band. Hiring freelance professionals is a good solution for small business. At this point it’s just unwillingness, and like I said, I’m not convinced it steams from a design principle.
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The debate about implementing a save system has been going on for years. And the company has remained firm in not implementing a save system or a back button.
I think there’s two likely explanations.
First, CoG could be just ignoring the majority of the fanbase. Maybe the company feels its important to stick true to their ideology regardless of the opinions of the fans.
Or secondly (which I think is most likely), that CoG is ignoring requests for a save system and/or back button because most readers of CoG games don’t care either way.
I think most CoG readers are casual players. They only complete one route and mostly skim huge chunks of text until a choice option comes up. I don’t have data to back this but it’s an observation I see the few people around me who do read a CoG game from time to time do. And some forum members seem to have observed this too.
This is likely in contrast to CoG forum members who are more passionate and likely to replay the game doing several different routes and have a firmer grasp of how they see their MC.
I think I said this before in another thread, but I honestly believe CoG forum members are not a representative sample of the average CoG player who downloads these games.
For example, most CoG forum users know that there is a difference between the demo and the full game.
But a lot people in the various mobile app stores gladly give games a one star rating because they are shocked to find a pay wall at the end of the demo…
It’s very likely that the company sees the players who want a save system to be a loud minority of the overall CoG playerbase. And this gives them the leeway to ignore demands for a save system.
At the end of the day, I don’t know why the company is truly refusing to implement a save system.
I think a limited number of checkpoints could be a reasonable compromise. But CoG is a private company so who cares about my compromise 
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I do remember failing in the last mission for Hero of Kendrickstone and putting it down for months because I had to restart from the beginning. That one could get an update to add check points.
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I don’t remember any checkpoints in the version I’ve played. My magic girl ran out of willpower during the ritual and got promptly beheaded.
There was none. I just said I remember being frustrated like you start failing the last mission.
As one of the first CoG authors to code checkpoints into my game, I’ve obviously got no objections to this. 
(And nor did CoG when Rebels was published, in case anyone was wondering.) If CoG took steps to make it easier, as an inbuilt code function, I think that would be great.
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Like I said, without a proper market survey, whether this group is big or small is anyone’s guess. However, I don’t think CoG is ignoring these requests based on the size of the group, but the fact they’re not suffering loss in revenue. I for one wouldn’t refuse to buy a ChoiceScript game I was really looking forward to because of the lack of a save system. I believe most people behave likewise.
From a business perspective, they don’t feel any incentive to invest time and money on this feature, and I understand that. On the other hand, this is a quality of life issue, and long overdue, most requested, feature.
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Maybe that’s the explanation. If players are not willing to punish the company financially for not have a save system/checkpoint then there’s no incentive for them to change their design philosophy
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I mean, I’ve punished From Software by not buying any of their games. Funnily, it hasn’t changed their design philosophy. It’s like some people actually enjoy dying over and over and over…
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Bloodborne is the best game ever made and you’re not going to change my mind about it. All the pain and sweat and swearing made the finish line all the more sweeter. 
But on the topic, sliding my finger by accident or dropping my phone on my face because I was reading in bed and having a choice selected by accident feels punishing. Besides hacking through a sea of enemies in a video game is an entirely different experience than reading a book, which is, ultimately, what playing ChoiceScript games is.
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Isn’t there a “never” missing in there? ;D
And btw, I agree that the swipe function is a good example of something that should be changed, for game design reasons as well as response to feedback. (And I even wrote that before seeing that you’d edited your post to bring it up again. )
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As someone who has both dexterity issues with my hands and vision problems, a back button would be a blessing. I’ve misclicked answers far too many times and had to restart all the way from the beginning. Its exhausting and sometimes it makes me quit the game altogether.
As much as I’d love a save system or back button, the lack of it probably won’t stop me from supporting Choicescript games. As much as having to replay an entire game is an inconvenience, its also not a dealbreaker for me.
I guess I’m neutral on this point.
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My man is over here casually saving the world in his free time. 
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A Soft Save System is the best you can hope for using vanilla choicescript.
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Jumping back upthread a bit, because I think there’s some substance worth chewing on here:
Of course not. But I’ve witnessed so many CSG readers (reading aloud in our living room, and in Let’s Plays, and in written descriptions of their experience) enjoyably paralyzed by/agonizing over high-stakes choices that I’ll go to bat for that as a (if not the) core experience of a successful CSG. (As it certainly was for Telltale’s Walking Dead, for comparable example.)
So the question is, for what percentage of the player base would that experience be eroded by the ability to save-scum it – not having to agonize at all, because they can just jump back if they don’t like the consequence they get?
I’m not even sure of the answer for myself, let alone the world at large. Sure, I always read my paperback CYOAs with fingers marking past choices I might want to jump back to… and I never found them as compelling as a good CSG.
I think @PrinceJackal is onto something when he speculates that forumgoers are more likely than the average CSG reader to dive deep into a game – certainly more likely to play it through more than once. I wonder if that makes us more likely to play with the aim of a perfectly customized game, and thus more inclined to want the UI that lets us jump back choice-by-choice because for (many of) us, the core experience is more about customization than it is for a one-and-done reader.
Or maybe not – maybe the one-and-dones would be even hungrier for the chance to salvage their one playthrough by saving before every major choice.
Like you say, it’s all speculation without actual data, and I think for this you’d need more than a survey – you’d need something that gets at revealed preference, a chance for people to play games of comparable quality with and without a save scheme, and see how they talked about the choices afterward.
I think there’s an interesting possibility for experimentation here, if design philosophy rather than coding investment really is the primary factor preventing adoption of a save-at-will system. Seems to me that allowing a save-game option for HGs makes sense, since HGs don’t have to take “consequential choice” as their design linchpin; they don’t have to (even in theory) offer equally satisfying stories whether you make or fail your stat checks, end up with an RO or not, etc. If it were possible for HG authors to write with a save system, then we’d have a petri dish set up for comparison between games where it’s easy and hard to reverse your choices, and see how they tend to do over time.
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Sure, when it comes to Twine, individual writers/teams may not be able to compete for now, but trends change, and more and more people are going to look for alternatives. Still, it’s hard to make a factual argument without knowing the actual situation behind CoG’s revenue stream, so this is only speculation on my part.
In my opinion, if an optional save system is implemented, it’s possible it won’t end up alienating most hardcore players as they will have the choice to not use it, i.e. toggle ironman mode. It would function as a difficulty level to appeal to different types of players. However, if CoG believes that it’s important to maintain hardcore gameplay as part of their brand (as From Software does), that’s a decision they can freely make as a business and I can respect that.
I would like to add that even Souls games have a checkpoint system using the bonfires, so if you’ve been struggling with a boss, it takes 5-10 minutes to go back and redo the fight. Maybe the more appropriate analogy is a roguelike, where you have to restart with each death.
I think part of this is because we don’t immediately learn about all of the consequences of each choice (as a result of delayed branching), and sometimes they come back in unexpected ways. In my experience, having saves doesn’t detract from the thrill of making hard, high-stakes choices, but of course it varies from player to player.
In any case, I’m thankful that we have community contributions like @cup_half_empty 's tool, as well as the save editor for Steam. So authors and readers do have options, even if they’re not officially supported as of right now.
Also wanted to share this for the discussion in case anyone missed it. Updating the save system does seem to be on CoG’s agenda:
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My thoughts exactly. While having a few choices that seem important is nice, it was my impression that the preferred game design was consequences based on stats. This allows for the so-called delayed branching. So there shouldn’t be one single choice that utterly changes the outcome of a playthrough.
Being able to go back a few choices shouldn’t hinder player experience. Furthermore, there other reasons why going back is a good idea, for example, the option text not being clear about the consequences of the choice (happens a lot).
So it seems I was close on the mark! But like I said, hiring freelance help is an option, and this demand is not at all recent. The workload for CoG’s team is only going to increase as the company grows market share (which is something I suppose they want to achieve).
CoG is a publishing house, true, but like it or not, they’re also a software company. Keeping a lonely developer in the team will prove to be harder and harder.
Another solution would be to open source the game engine and focus solely on the editorial and publishing side of the business.
Either way, if I may be so bold, I believe CoG should start doing something instead of dallying with it.
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Can we agree that even if they don’t want to implement a checkpoint/save sistem within books, they could at least improve the already existing one beetween sequels?
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This thread is past Denial, Anger and now firmly in the Bargaining stage I see.
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