Consolidated "Saves in Choice of Games and Hosted Games" Thread

I’m convinced. I’m working out a checkpoint system. Very annoying. 289 *create variables. But I’m giving it a try.

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I’d be happy to do this for you. Please send a PM if I can help.

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The problem with the checkpoint system is that it is an absolute pain in the ass to bugtest on CoG’s end, and it balloons the number of variables by a factor of two.

That’s why Hallowford has three checkpoints instead of nine.

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I figured as much, in both cases. Barring a fairly major scripting update, it’s going to be a pain for any author to implement a save system, even if they’re an old hand at it. I salute you as always for putting in the extra effort, sir.

Aside from just the annoyance of putting it together, does doubling the number of variables have an appreciable effect on load time? What makes it so annoying to bugtest?

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It’s not so much the variables as it is the fact that being able to load and save the game adds a whole dimension of complexity to it, since bug reports also have to report on whether the current game state is loaded from a checkpoint or not (which would lead to variables set to values which would otherwise be impossible), as well as explaining the fact that checkpoints aren’t hard saves in the first place.

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Does the use of *temp variables impact this? Or should I consider changing all my temps into created variables in start-up?

It shouldn’t, since the checkpoint requires transitioning to a separate save/load scene, which wipes temps.

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So, since the checkpoint is the beginning of the scene everything should match up - but this woud allow the player to change things if they wish … which can be sold as a positive or a negative to the masses.

Gotta think on this because I do think the checkpoint system will start to become the norm.

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See? This is the reason why we absolutely need a checkpoint system in the least. I greatly appreciate what skillful authors like you all are doing, but CS is also made for people who are new to coding, and they cannot implement a checkpoint system. And I’m sure all of us agree that a checkpoint system would be lovely.

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My case for a save system is this: In Choice of the Cat, there are certain game states that are very rare. Choices made having once achieved one of these rare game states are thus very fraught - it may take multiple subsequent playthroughs to reach that game state again. And mind you, the choices are fairly trivial themselves. By the time this game state is reached the outcome is largely determined. But one wants to see where each of the choices leads, if for no other reason than that the player has already read much of the writing in the game and liked it well enough to want to see more of it. So, while I understand that a game state represents an accretion of player choices, and, I suspect, the outcome of a few dice rolls, I would nonetheless like a save point from which I can explore freely without fear of losing the investment of time spent to reach that state.

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Yeah, it’s pretty frustrating when you pick several ‘bad’ atunement options that end up putting you from 100% atunement to like 70% and force you to trace your steps back all the way through the story to figure out what the hell you did wrong. This is especially pronounced when certain ‘selfish’ decisions are made as the Snow Monkey that, when you actually think about it, would make a lot of sense for the affinity but for some reason still gets penalized?

Trying to purposely break up Momoko and Hatch because you want her for yourself is literally the epitome of being a pervert but I somehow get more affinity for supporting a relationship that’s purposely outlined as difficult and traumatic? Like, what the fuck?

On one hand I really liked how much content there was in Book 3 but the lack of a proper save system only annoys me that there’s so much I’ll have to redo if I mess up somewhere badly enough.

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So I just played the great tournament 2 and i started the story where you play as the characters child and (spoilers?) I kept getting killed by malik and had to restart the whole story to get to that point again which takes more time than I would like to spend just clicking “next” I couldn’t help but think that a checkpoint system would be much appreciated in games where you can die and have to restart the whole thing. I’ve seen a couple games where I enjoy playing them for the story but don’t enjoy starting all over and having to read the same things over and over. Maybe we could see the implementation of a save system in most games like that? Any thoughts?

Some games actually has checkpoints before each chapters. But those checkpoints will be reset if you go the next chapter or close the game.

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I was thinking that the checkpoints would be better in most games, especially long ones where if you get near the end and there’s a few decisions you’d like to see the answer to all of them, but don’t want to chose a different playstyle just get the different endings. But I’ve always thought the save system we have now is a bit sketchy anyways, I’ve had plenty of problems with saves not transferring over.
I don’t really see the point of having a checkpoint if it doesn’t save when you exit the game

Dang. There’s so much philosophical conversation about how a save feature might impact the player experience or compromise artistic integrity… but I ended up on this thread because I really just need to put this interactive novel down to go have dinner with my better half, and that means I have to power down my computer. Sometimes I play/read on public computers or can’t leave my browser open. Needing a save feature has nothing to do with wanting to manipulate the narrative. Just with not always being available to binge in one session. My very boring and practical dad reason for jumping in with a “save” vote, here.

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One more reason why, absent a save feature I prefer Steam to the website (being able to mod is another big one, of course). But not everybody can afford to play the games that keep getting bigger and bigger in a single binge session all of the time. Which is why it took me weeks to get in a second playthrough of Keeper. Since I must do it in one sitting I can only do it on a relatively quiet weekend.

When I shut down my game and browser it is in the same place when I start it again? No need to binge?

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I do believe games are saved in cookies. So if you switch PCs or just have to wipe your data for reasons after each session then your progress is reset.

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I came up with another good point about the save system but since the thread started over a year ago, I was rather reluctant to resuscitate a dead thread. But since it’s rolling again, here goes nothing

The reason I get ALL of my CoG content from Steam is because I can easily tweak around with the game files and just put in a very make-do save system myself ( it’s actually just a macro to delete the current files and paste back files from a previous point in the game). And I guess I like modding and messing around with game mechanics once in a while.
So basically, I can just do the save myself. CoG implementing it would just be making my life a little bit easier. Now for people on platforms where they can’t alter the files, well, I guess they just don’t have quite the same options to do such things.

What I’m saying is that if CoG doesn’t want to add the feature themselves for some reason whether logistical or philosophical, at least give authors and players the option to do so themselves.
There are CoGs with incredibly dark themes which asks whether you want explicit language and descriptions of certain things. But somehow asking whether you would like to have a save feature is just too damn demoralizing for the story?

As an aside, people do make mistakes you know. I used to have to start over because I misclicked one or two times leading to completely undesirable results. It wasn’t me making a choice I didn’t like, I literally just made a simple error and poof potentially hours of investment into the story gone awry.

Thank God for Steam and local files! I would not want to go back to that period of my interactive fiction journey

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