In the end of the day, it’s all up to them. And like I said I don’t think they’ll do it anyways. Personally, I’m here for the drama. 
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Thats the problem with CoG, instead of fixing the problem now they will keep delaying it till the system is way way wayyy outdated
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I actually do understand for multiple reasons why a back button would probably hurt COG’s games in the long run and why they probably don’t want to put it in. To take the urgency out of choices (as you can always just rechoose) and an even bigger issue would be it would make it easier to see the rails would not be an improvement in game experience… but as the games get longer I’d personally love a checkpoint system where I could go back to a few points in the game rather than completely starting over. It too has issues (some parts of some games can only be accessed by replaying from earlier- the joys of hidden and delayed variable triggers. I use them myself and by restarting 3/4 of the way through a game it would definitely lock people out of some paths. Would probably need a warning). But for some games I don’t want to play from the beginning and just want to see what would happen with a particular choice change.
So many people say they only play games one which makes me sad when there is often so much work put into making extra paths. I don’t know, do you think a check point system might change that? In the end though it is COG’s choice what they allow. I’m guessing they’ve looked at the metrics given it’s been such a common ask and have their reasons not to allow it.
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My own guess is that when it comes to implementing code for checkpoints in long games, it’s mostly @cup_half_empty’s explanation… and that when it comes to the save-anywhere-at-will system that lots of forum regulars want, there might still be game design philosophy considerations holding them back.
Let’s see! Maybe the linked message on save deletion really does portend a broader update in the cards.
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While I agree the source code is old and in need of an update, I get the feeling the choice to block players from going back a screen is almost 100% ideological on their part (I also get the distinct feeling the code hasn’t been updated so they don’t have to hear about this when they update it). They don’t care if the inability to save the game ruins people’s enjoyment or not. So you die or ruin your game? Start over and suck it. It’s kind of the old school way of video gaming, too, where if you die you get to restart the game from the beginning, despite having wasted hours of your life playing it (which absolutely sucks).
I love the fact that Malin put in checkpoints for FH. I mean, I really love it. I figure it took a lot of coding to implement, and I really appreciate that it’s there (I just appreciate FH2, period). It would be nice if we had a save system to go back further than the last checkpoint (in a couple of runs, I had to start over from the beginning, because I clicked “next” on a choice accidentally and hoped it wouldn’t mess up my game, but it did).
I don’t think CoG will ever give on this, no matter how many times we complain or how many people point out that it ruins their enjoyment of these games. They want to dictate how we are able to play the game. If you make a bad decision, misunderstand the author’s intent, or just accidentally click “next” without changing your option, then that’s your damned problem, not theirs. That’s how it was “meant” to be played. 
That’s why it’s best to just keep the code open when you play most of these games, so you don’t end up choosing something you think means one thing only to find out it meant another and hosed your character. Unfortunately, that still doesn’t help when you accidentally hit next (or your dog does it on your touchscreen, which is really fun, not!) and end up screwing up your character and have to start over, anyway.
I really wish authors would find a way around it and implement a local save system, so you have somewhere to reload from, kind of like is on DashingDon, only using local space (also takes care of deleting unwanted saves). Maybe it’d be allowed in the HG games if someone can figure out a way to implement it. Or, if someone wrote it, we could hack our copies of the game and run them locally with the save system.
I also try to play most games on Steam, and use the save manager. You can save where you want and restart from that point, which makes for a much better playing experience. It means it takes longer to get through the game, but when something goes awry and your character is taken down a path you don’t like, you load the save and fix it. You just have to remember to save often, which is a pain in the ass.
I can only speak for myself–YES! There are games I’ve purchased, made it halfway through, then never touched again because I got so frustrated about how my character was being built or the trajectory of the story. Had I been able to reload from a save, I would have kept playing. As I couldn’t, I just said screw it and never looked at the game again. Now that I try to code dive every game I play, it makes it somewhat better, but that’s time consuming and can get annoying when people do fancy weird crap with their code.
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I think I like the idea of checkpoints more than a back button. Checkpoints seem to be a solid compromise between not having to restart for a misclick and not removing stakes altogether.
Having seen it put to practice in games such as Fallen Hero: Retribution, I think it seems generally pretty nice. The checkpoints are at the start of each major section and seem strategically placed to let people see/replay the results of each major decision without replaying the entire story. But they’re also sporadic enough that it incentivizes committing to a course of action, even if an individual smaller choice may not give the result you want.
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I don’t really want to wade into broader discussions about the company’s intentions, because I am one person and do not have the ability (programming-wise) to make any changes to our system. (As has been mentioned in a couple places in this thread, there’s really only one person at the company who can do that, and he has a ton of demands on his time.) But COG is not opposed to having checkpoints in our games. There are several COG games that have checkpoints - my upcoming game, Stars Arisen, is one of them. (Coming out next week, fun fact!) Rebels has them, as noted, and I believe Cakes and Ale does as well, and I’m sure there are others. There are certainly more that don’t have them than that do, I’m not claiming it’s standard, but that’s not because we’re trying to stop it, it’s because it’s not something we have a quick and easy way to do and not all authors are in a position to implement it. If we could make that easier, I agree that that would be great. (But see above re: me not personally being able to do that.)
The message that got referenced above about deleting saves above is from one of my support emails, and “we would like to do that but have not had the time and resources” honestly is the answer to a lot of these kinds of questions. Because there are so few of us and so many things we have to do regularly just to keep publishing games, it really can take years to make changes, even ones we want to make.
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I just want to add one voice for the “swipe” issue. I’ve been playing CoG since Choice of the Dragon, and at that time I was largely playing on my computer. In that environment, I didn’t have issues accidentally selecting choices, and a lot of the early design decisions feel like they were made based on that environment.
Since the advent of the mobile app, however, I have started largely playing on my phone, and, since then probably select the wrong option accidentally around 1-2 times per game, usually while trying to scroll through a long list of options. Sometimes it isn’t impactful either way, but other times I wind up angrily rapidly playing though the entire game again without reading it to fix the choice, which is, I think, not an experience that should be a mandatory part of playing these games on your phone.
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Actually there’s an if statement in the source code that only activates this feature on mobile, iirc. I found it by accident one time. It was like suddenly coming up with the solution to a puzzle you had given up a long time ago, then I proceeded to stare at that piece of code in dumbfounded anger. Fixing it, meaning removing it, would be so easy. 
Ahem, if I may toot my own horn, Fallen Hero makes use of Softly, my soft save system generator. 
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You may toot all you like. Your creation is much appreciated! 
And if you can figure out how to set up a save system that works for games run locally (directly from the local index.html, pointing to the chapter files), I’ll buy you an Amazon gift card! 
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I believe that’s how @CJW’s save plugin works. It’s the same one Dashingdon makes available to authors.
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Is that the Steam plugin? I’ve got that one. A pain to go in and out constantly to get saves done, but I love having it. It’s awesome.
I’ve been playing around with your plugin, too, modding games with no checkpoints. I don’t quite have the hang of it yet, though.
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Let me know if you need any help. 
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Have you tried the save plug-in for browsers? It’s exactly like the dashingdon one but with unlimited save slots. The only downside is that you need a internet connection since it only works with the online version of the game in the cog site
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As already said in the thread, if that is the case wouldn’t it be better to hire a freelancer to complete the work instead of waiting another decade to code the changes yourself
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I have little to no insight into that, personally. Hiring (or contracting) and firing power is also something that I very much do not have. It’s my understanding that it would be a much more complicated process than “just hire someone,” but I know very little about the details of the skills we would be looking for, the budget and resources it would require, the time commitment involved, the amount of proprietary information they would need to be given access to, and any other number of considerations that would go into that.
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I had not tried that before. I saw discussion about it, but had never noticed a link. Thanks for that! 
I used to do this all the time before I discovered that I could edit the save files. What makes it worse is that you are more likely to make mistakes when you speed through it, so you end up misclicking again and having to start all over.
Humble as ever, I see. 
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I didn’t know about this! That’s cool!
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For a long time now why is there no implemented save system yet?