Savegames are important

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about the problems that occur when a computer game has only an automatic savagame function and does not allow the players to save their progress at any stage of their gameplay.

Over the recent years, an automatic savegame function (ASF) has become more and more common. Each time a player reaches a certain checkpoint, completes an event or just quits the game, the player’s progress is automatically saved in order to ensure that the players can continue where they left off or do not have to repeat certain stages of the game if they die in a challenging boss fight. In addition, an ASF adds some finality to the gameplay as each decision and each event can not be undone thus making the virtual world more authentic.

The most simple and direct way is to solely implement an ASF without providing any quicksave or normal save functions. In this case, every decision, event and even mistake is final and can not be reverted. This, on the one hand, adds some excitement to the gameplay as players are then challenged to think about their next steps and have to act very carefully. On the other hand, it also affects the players‘ interest in trying out new things as, in case of a bad outcome, they can not return to the point before they started the experiment. Moreover, players are constantly challenged to be fully focussed on the gameplay as they can not revert a mistake they make due to a lack of concentration which ultimately can result in a high degree of frustration.

A different way of implementing an ASF is by adding an additional quicksave function that allows the players to easily save the game at any time and, in case of a mistake or bad outcome, to return to the point as the quicksave was made. This way, players can try out risky things and learn from their mistakes without permanently affecting the state of their game. In addition, a quicksave function provides the players with a basic version of a safety net as, in case of an unhappy coincidence, they have a fallback level and do net get permanently punished for an event they can not account for.

The last way of implementing an ASF can be done by combining it with a quicksave as well as a normal save function. The ASF then acts as a fallback level in case a player forgets to save the own progress at the end of a game session or experiences a crash of the game itself. In addition, players are then able to create savegames of different stages of the game which ultimately provide them with the greatest flexibility to try out different approaches. Moreover, the normal save function allows the players to just play the game without being fully focussed on it as, in case of a mistake, they can just revert to a point before the mistake happened.

Therefore, the implementation as well as the form of an ASF can be also seen as an important game design decision as it greatly affect a gamer’s playstyle. Just implementing an ASF is only useful when decision making is an important part of the gameplay or the game belongs to the genre of survival games. In those two cases, being unable to revert to an ealier stage of the game increases the excitement and challenges the players to be extra careful with their next steps. All other games should at least provide a quicksave function in order to give the players some control over the way how and when they want to save their progression. Also, it ensures that players can just play the game without thinking too much about the consequences or try out different approaches without being required to start a new game in a worst case scenario.

Personally, I prefer the traditional way of having a normal save function that allows me to have multiple savegames of my current playthrough so that, in case of an unhappy coincidence or bad day, I can revert to a previous stage without losing all my progress due to a bad mistake.

In the end, a savegame is not only a feature to allow players to continue with their current playthrough, but also a way to save a certain stage of the game in order to return to this point when needed. Additionally, a savegame can rescue players who experience an error of the game that puts them into a position from which they can not recover. Unfortunately, several games just come with a plain ASF these days and do not give the players control over their savegames. Hopefully, game designers will start to rethink the way how they want to use the savegames as having no savegames takes away a lot of the playfulness of computer games.