I’ve created a save manager in Unity game engine that allows you to manage your Choice of Games and Hosted Games game’s save files (Steam only). It’s completely open-source and here are its main features:
You can save your progress manually and/or automatically. By default, the game is automatically saved as you progress through the story (i.e. whenever you progress to the next page of the game) so that you can undo your latest choices
You can edit your save files (stats etc.) with a built-in save editor
You can create more than one playthrough for each game. Each playthrough will have its own save files
Ah, I meant Steam’s game save directory, not the program’s CoG save storage folder! The latter recognize and appreciate. Unless I missed a feature (entirely possible) the program doesn’t detect the Steam save path automatically. But it remembers them once they’ve been pointed out, so it’s a relatively minor quibble. Still overall a massive QoL improvement over manual copy/paste.
If I you’re looking for improvement suggestions, including an auto detect or mass import for file paths would be great, as would the ability to rename games (ie, “aegisproject180files” into “180 Files: The Aegis Project”).
I see. On my Windows, the save manager can actually find all apps in the Steam save folder automatically (so, when I click the grey box where the game’s title is displayed, I find the list of games pre-populated). May I ask where your Steam save files are located at? Mine is at “C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata”.
The game names are fetched from the save file’s filename (storePSaegisproject180filesPSstate). I don’t think I can fetch the game’s full name automatically because the full name isn’t stored anywhere in the save folder. Perhaps Steam Web API can be used to get the full name, I’ll see if it’s possible without an API key. Renaming the games manually isn’t currently possible and I believe it should have a low priority since most game names are already pretty explanatory (aegisproject180files). I may add an option to rename the game later on but as I said, it’s currently a low priority for me.
All your feedback are very much appreciated. Please keep them coming as you think of other features/ideas.
And yeah, renaming is a fairly minor feature overall and is mainly for long list readability. The Aegis Project is a notable one just because the file name and the title differ more significantly than most. To be honest, I suggested manual renaming because I figured it would be easier than figuring out how to tap the API or, worse, asking you to make a list by hand!
Would it be possible to refer to a spreadsheet for the information? For example, columns for SteamID, game file name (as a default display), display title, and sort title (to avoid alphabetizing by a / an / the). Exporting the program’s current game list to a .csv, would allow a good starting point for users to manage their own lists. Alternatively, being able to reference Google sheets could could make for a good community resource. (All of the above would, of course, be ideal.)
Unrelated to the above, would it be possible for the program to automatically close and restart the game for loading saves? Perhaps with a customizable, toggle-able time delay to account for Steam cloud sync. Customizable, to account for different connection speeds (is 3 seconds a good default?), toggle-able, for those with cloud sync turned off. The restart itself should probably also be toggle-able, for those who’d rather do it themselves.
I have no idea how much is possible through Unity, so I understand if these asks are more complicated than they seem.
Games’ readable names will be fetched from a JSON file that I’ll maintain on GitHub (I’ll accept pull requests on that file, or if user doesn’t have a GitHub account, they can contact me with the proposed changes and I’ll commit those changes myself)
On at least Windows, it is possible to restart an executable as you’ve suggested. But I’m not optimistic about this because I don’t want antivirus softwares to think that my save manager is a malicious software that can close/start processes on its own. When an antivirus falsely accuses (false positive) an app for being a, say, trojan virus, most users will understandably stop using that app. I don’t want that to happen to my save manager.
P.S. As promised, the new version (v1.2.3) is now live:
You can’t set Steam saves folder manually but it WILL be set automatically after you pick a Game Save Directory manually. Then, if you restart the save manager, you’ll see that it detects all the games automatically
Game names are fetched from this JSON file. Any help expanding it is greatly appreciated
Hi, on Windows, you can either download the executable from here (Portable-Win64.zip), or you can download the source code from that same GitHub repository and open it in a Unity 3D version of your choice to generate the executable yourself. On Mac and Linux, you must generate the executable yourself from the source code in Unity 3D.
Hi, I’m sorry I probably seem like such an idiot, but I am so confused of how to implement this feature. I am so confused as to what process you must do to get this working, and I’m really keen to do so! I have found the steam cloud save folder and the game ID, but now I have no idea what I’m meant to do with them and I honestly feel like an idiot rn because nobody else seems to have this problem. I can’t just create a normal directory folder because my file explorer doesn’t accept elements like / or {} in the naming of its files, and I can’t put it in my browser because it has no effect. Are we meant to run it on some sort of program in the format mentioned in the instructions? I’ve been at this for literal hours and this is my last resort. Can someone please help me with this?
Hi! You first need to run the save manager app. You can either build it yourself using Unity 3D, or on Windows you can download the portable version from here. Then, you need to click the “…” button to the right of “Game Save Directory” and select the game’s Steam save folder. Now, as long as the save manager is open, it should automatically create save files as you progress through the story.
Note that if you had restarted the game at least once or progressed through the story for at least one page, then there is a high possibility that you won’t need to set “Game Save Directory” manually at all. If you click the wide grey button above the “AUTOMATED SAVES” text, the game will likely be listed there.
Hello! I also seem like an idiot because similarly to the person above me, I see the steam cloud save older and the game ID, but I’m not sure what to do next. How do I build the save manager app on Unity 3D? I fiddled around with the code using this video: How to use GitHub with Unity - YouTube but I’m pretty sure I got closer to the goal, but not close enough. Can anyone give me very simplistic advice, please?
Hi! Inside File-Build Settings, you can set the target platform to your computer’s operating system and then click Build to build the executable to an empty directory. For convenience, I’ve also shared my 64-bit Windows build as portable-win64.zip so you don’t have to work with Unity on Windows.
Oh, I see, that makes sense. It actually does what I’ve already been doing, manually copy pasting saves from the steam folder haha this make everything a lot more simple and easy though. Thank you very much!
Unless I missed a feature (entirely possible) the program doesn’t detect the Steam save path automatically. But it remembers them once they’ve been pointed out, so it’s a relatively minor quibble. Still overall a massive QoL improvement over manual copy/paste.