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[Guert]

The Designer's Workshop: The Save Systems

   Welcome again to the designer's workshop. This time, we are going to talk about a topic proposed by TeamQuiggan: the save systems. What kind of save system do you prefer in terms of design? How do you implement one efficiently in your games? How do you make sure that the system you choose is used to help the player without turning it into an exploit or a chore? Save systems are crucial and quite tricky to work with.

   Before we start discussing, let's define what are save systems. By definition, they are systems that allow the player to save a game state on a storage device, external (floppy, memory stick, etc) or internal (battery) to the game. Originally, in arcade games, the competitive and lucrative nature of these experiences made the need to save the player's progress quite futile. However, when home gaming began, many games started to offer longer experiences that would require time investment. The first save systems were then created.  Designed using many different data storage devices, save systems come in different sizes and shapes. Paper, floppy disks, hard drives, batteries in cartridges and memory cards are all tools that we designers can work with to allow the player to stop playing whenever he feels like it.

   Here are three types of save system that are (or were) very popular. Modern games tend to mix these together and usualy add some extra spices, like requirements in order to save.

• Passwords: Used before external storage devices were popular, passwords are strings of various digits that the player has to write in order to continue where he left off.
  
• Save points: The save points system allows the player to save his progress only at specific locations in the game.
• Check points: The check point system will automatically save the player’s progress after that a certain goal is achieved.

On a designer's point of view...

• How do you feel a save sytem should work? Are there some existing save system that you like? Why?
• How do you incorporate these system into your gameplay? Are there games you noticed that did this well?
  
• Are there save systems that you do not like? Any games you feel had a bad saving system? Why?
• How do you implement a saving system without making it hard or too easy? How do you prevent your players from exploiting the save system? How do design one that will not restrict the player too much during the experience?
• How can you tell if adding a game system is pertinent or not? Have you ever noticed a game that had superfluous save system?

   Usualy, I like to knock these threads another notch with images. Unfortunatly, I didn't find anything apropriate so I decided to post the following. Make what you want of it.

Link of interest:
Sirlin on save systems

DISCUSS (but let's not focus on that pic please )

[AdamAtomic]

I am a fan of:

1 - extremely short passwords
2 - knytt/lost winds style "fast" savepoints
3 - goldeneye style mission screens

What do all these things have in common?  Unobtrusive, easy, and you aren't completely F'ed in the A if you die.

[Inane]

I like save points.
I don't like how in games you can save right before a crucial decision or something that involves luck and if you fuck up you can simply undo it.
Example: I'd like it if in Fallout you could only save on area changes and the world map.

It also fucking sucks when, as a side-effect of having freedom in a game, you get yourself in a fucked up situation and then you save and you can't get out. No idea how to bypass that without fucking something up, though.

[Melly]

But the pic's so awesome!

Anyway, I think that save systems should be well thought out just as much as any other aspect of the game's design. Depending on the type of save system you change the experience the player has when playing the game.

For example:

Save anywhere anytime: Popular with PC games, this is probably the most forgiving system in existence. It gives the player absolute control, but it's also the most easily exploitable. Died at a tough part? Who cares about figuring out a proper strategy, just reload and dive headfirst on it until you get lucky, no matter if it takes 2 dozen tries.

Predefined save-spots: A system that takes the control from the player and places it on the designer's hands. The designer dictates when you can take a breather, and how large and challenging are the chunks of gameplay you'll have to go through before you reach the next save. Can be used creatively to create epic, long sequences near the end-game, but with bad design it can easily lead to unwanted frustration.

Save only on exit: The system used by most roguelikes, this system (hopefully allied with an auto-save for any system instability/power outage issues) focuses on making the saving of the progress as little a part of strategy and gameplay as possible. It cannot be relied upon, and in games like these death usually has a penalty, be it depriving the player from some resources, or permadeath, which destroys the save file. This is the least exploitable in-game (not counting save-scumming) and the least forgiving, since any mistake is permanent.

Limited saves/penalty saves: A fairly rare system seen in very few games, where saving is made into a resource that must be carefully used, usually linked to some in-game collectable, or score. You either have a limited number of saves that you msut use carefully or saving deals a penalty of come sort, like requiring in-game currency.

I can think of only these four right now. Passwords can be considered a predefined save-spot system, though more exploitable due to being able to use them to instantly go to the game's final level with full gear, for example, if you know what you're doing.

[PowRTocH]

It also fucking sucks when, as a side-effect of having freedom in a game, you get yourself in a fucked up situation and then you save and you can't get out. No idea how to bypass that without fucking something up, though.

God damn, you just reminded me of what ended my Final Fantasy Tactics career. There's a part in the game where you battle Wiegraf, who is insanely overpowered and you can't possibly defeat without grinding to the bone. There's a save point before him, which any sane person would probably use, however once you save there you can't go back. You start battling him and you can't possibly go back and grind at all, and he kills you by your second turn.



So never ever do this ever if you're a game designer and instead join me in burning some effigies of FFT's game designers.

Also:

Bioshock has one of the worst saving systems conceivable IMO. Basically the way it works, if you haven't played, is that when you die you keep all your resources and the enemies stay dead/weakened (besides some respawning cannonfodder which don't hinder you at all), only you're offset a couple seconds back. Dying is actually preferable to finding a healing spot and paying to be healed. Basically I think it's a really broken system and probably part of why I don't like that game. At all.

[Ivan]

Knytt-style savepoints! it's the most elegant system ever. Sure games like Castlevania have similar ones but in Castlevania you have to trek to find the closest one. Basically being able to save almost anywhere without having to deal with save file menus and all that junk that takes you out of the game. It also provides just a bit more challenge than a quick-save system. The biggest problem i have with quicksave systems where you can just mash F6 or whatever is actually not that it takes the challenge out of the game, but that you get so used to doing it, its very easy to quicksave right before something bad happens to you and potentially ruin all of your progress. To remedy that games add autosaves and all this and that and sooner or later you end up with a million zillion save files. Profiles and readily available save points are what's up.

[team_q]

I have to say my 2 favourite styles are auto save checkpoints and Bookmark style.

I like autosave checkpoint style, like in Call of Duty games, because it doesn't break you out of the action and save creeping is unnecessary because you know the save is just before each showpiece. With the wacky renewable health, you get players back in the action within seconds instead of forcing them to reload saves or hunt for medi-kits. I hate quick save creeping and I will abuse it if it is available, but I much prefer if I don't even have to think about F6

I also like bookmark style. This is where you only get one save and if you save again it overwrites the previous save. As a designer I like this style because it forces the player to make decisions that they have to stick with. Also removes the player unfriendly Iron man approach of save on exit.

I have been reading reviews for years and I constantly hear reviewers bitch about the second style, but I think its better this way. If your game play is linear go with the first, if its open ended or with a lot of options, I would be happy.

[cmspice]

guys, lets not forget the zsnes save state style.

Usually ruins the game though because it incites the player to cheat but two points:

1. Can be used responsibly to skip certain very irritating poorly designed portions of the game. But hell, it's hard to draw this line.

2. They often cheat anyways, and save states just makes that cheating waste less time for the same product: e.g. trying to make money by chihuahua racing in GODHAND and reloading whenever you lose.

[William Broom]

I think save creeping should be removed as much as possible from games. It's not enough to just say 'well if people abuse it its their choice, just like cheating'. When you cheat, it's a definite thing, you're either cheating or you're not. But save creeping has a massive gray area between reasonably using the feature and abusing the feature. Also if you use save creeping as a way to let players get past hard bits in the game then you should think about making your game easier instead.

I think it's pretty easy to agree that checkpoints are best for linear games. The problems arise in non-linear games. JRPGs get around this by splattering the gameworld with save points, but JRPGs never have any decisions with lasting effects on the game.

For true role-playing games, I really like the idea Quiggan suggested which is like a bookmark. It would have to be explained carefully at the start or it would annoy players greatly though.

A good example of terrible save systems is in Icewind Dale. In ID, the most powerful moves in the game are 'rest' and 'save'. If you exploit the pathetic enemy AI, you can lure out pretty much any enemy in the game from his starting position to anywhere else on the map. So instead of fighting a group of six skeletons and two ghouls like you're supposed to, you can draw out one enemy at a time, lead him far away from his comrades and ambush him with the rest of your party. Then you save, rest (which replenishes all your health), and repeat. If that doesn't work you can rush the enemy, damage them a bit, then flee to another area to rest. Even though your health is restored by 8 hours' rest, the enemy's health isn't. I'm almost certain that the designers were aware of this tactic because they filled the game with huge gangs of monsters that you could never hope to defeat unless you split them up like this.

[Melly]

I agree that save creeping is one of those things that designers tend to use to hide their games' lack of proper balance. either that, or disencourages them from properly balancing the game since it's not really necessary.

I call that lazy design. Like random numbers.

[cyber95]

*cracks knuckles*
Alright, here's my $0.02
When it comes to saving, it depends on what kind of game it is. I admit, I always enjoy anytime saves (e.g. Half-Life), but sometimes that takes out much of the challenge, which is why when playing SNES RPGs I do so well. "Miss? Dammit. *load* Low damage? *load* High damage? *load* Critical hit? Sweet."

Anyway, here are my opinions.
Anytime to the Start
So you save your game, you turn it off, and when you start again you're at the beginning of the room you saved from. Exactly how you're at the beginning is different from game to game. Perhaps you need to do everything all over again, or maybe you've got full health and ammo now to compensate.
My favourite method is where key items are saved. So let's say you've got the Amulet of Spending Three Hours Climbing a Rock, and have to save. You load it up, and you don't have to spend the two hours climbing that rock again, but you still have to regain any ammo or money you aquired. What this means is you don't have to do the really time consuming part, and you can continue on to the part you didn't do yet.
This is pretty good for a lot of third person action games. The kind that's fast paced, and you want to keep going, and get to the next part, instead of doing the same thing over and over again (multiple runthroughs void).

Overworld Save
Standard Final Fantasy save. You can't save in dungeons and towns, but if you're out in the great open fields, you can go take a break. It's an okay method, but it has a terrible side effect: One More Level Syndrome.  You've said it before. "As soon as I save! Then I'll (mow the lawn, go to sleep, stop Godzilla)". This happens and the save doesn't come for a while. Granted, there's usually an extra save spot next to the boss, but by then you're about to face the boss! You can't quit now, you're almost done this part! Before you know it, your lawn is now a jungle/you've died of sleep deprivation/the town's been destroyed. It's worst when coupled with trademark JRPG long cutscenes. I'd rather take instant saving in this case. When thinking RPG, go Fallout, not Final Fantasy, please.

Save Spot
Similar to and also found in conjunction with Overworld Saving, these generally come more often. Goes well in a large variety of games, but yet again, can come with a bad case of One More Level Syndrome, depending on how sparse the placement of these are. I've no real gripe with these, as long as they aren't too far away from each other to make me worry about ever being able to save again. Of course, if you put them too close, it can make the game too easy, which (as far as I've heard, since I haven't played it) Bioshock players seemed to complain about with Vida chambers.

Finally, Autosave - Level Complete
This one is good for most any short level based game. Are your levels less than ten minutes long? Probably should go for this one, since your levels are too short to have save spots. Drawn To Life had a bit of a problem with this, however, in that the levels were too long for this. Some levels near the end could last up to half an hour, which worried me when I wanted to breeze through a level during a break at school, but only got halfway through the level. They could have split the levels up into multiple, but it wouldn't quite work for the game system (with there being a specific number of areas per zone), so the levels near the end could either be shorter, or also offer saving halfway through the longer levels.

This saving mechanic can also be used in the middle of levels, such as in Source engine story games, like Portal. Ignoring the anytime save right now, Portal would automatically save whenever you get to a new area, or whenever you got to a dangerous part. Much more relieving to know I can plunge straight into the fiery pit of doom instead of having to go through the slow moving lift area again to get there.




Alright, that's my opinion.


Hey, can I have my two cents back? I need that.

[Ciardhubh]

All strategies should integrate seamlessly into the gamplay, i.e. don't force the user to click through a dozen menu dialogs or show a ten minute death scene. In the best case, saving is done at just the right moments with as little action on the user's side as possible.

Short time wasters should have an automatic checkpoint/level-based saving system. It's unobtrusive, fast and easily usable. I does however break immersion because it divides the game into small pieces when you later load a savegame. As such, it is good for games focused on action, short gameplay sessions or very small gameplay units. It is also a way to compensate for the lack of content.

Complex games should really have a save-anywhere system. The best system I've seen, is that of Oblivion. It consists of several layers and caters all playing styles:

• First there are the quick-save/load buttons (user-controlled, short-term, one-button saving).
• Then there is the autosave function that saves at certain locations (no user interaction needed).
• And finally the "go to the menu and save to a specified file" system (user-controlled long-term archiving of the gameplay state).

Each system uses it's own files and does not overwrite the other. In a game focused on immersion and planning, this is important because a bad decision can ruin the game. You cannot limit the player in his decision to save in a complex game that offers a lot of freedom.

I do not agree with the notion of calling this cheating. Such a system allows you to actually make the game harder without loosing players. E.g. in Oblivion I installed a mod that makes it A LOT harder. Without being able to save often, it would be unplayable. However if it was easier it would be boring. A game can be much more intense because you can focus on the hard part. There is nothing worse than having to beat the same enemy several dozens of times to get to the hard one. Why bore and frustrate the player with something he obviously can beat and not let him focus on the challenge?

Besides the gameplay factor, you have to consider the technological aspects. A checkpoint system is much easier to implement than a save-anywhere system. It's basically the lazy way out. Allowing players to save anywhere can be hard to implement, in order not to break events, scripts, fights, etc.

I really object the "only one savegame/bookmark" idea because it is not robust enough. There have to be backups. Your games contain bugs. If the savegame is affected by a bug (or a bad decision), you just ruined the game for the player.

No matter how you do it, saving has to be VERY fast. If you have to display a progress screen, you're doing something wrong

[cmspice]

contrasting save creeping, lets not forget about the lack thereof save system style.

This is how games were founded on. You beat that shit in one sitting or you start all the way over. It gives a certain challenging pleasure to games like contra or metal slug (provided you don't have infinite credits) or I guess punishment D: when you end up playing the first level 100 times just to play the last level once.

Unfortunately, I've never really had the tenacity to beat a game that uses this type of system (w/o cheating at least). Furthest I've ever gotten is stage 4 in contra 4 (mostly because I fail at stage 3). I thought Nikujin found the perfect balance of having sparse saves with challenging portions in between. Each level sorta felt like a mini game of contra where'd I'd end up doing the first part of the level several times before getting to try the last part once.

[feeblethemighty]

One game which uses it's save system to help set the mood for the game is La Mulana.  It's a game that's kinda halfway between the "no saving" method of classic games and the "save point" method.

It's a huge game and the only save point is the village where you start and it's very difficult to replenish lost health.  So you have to balance exploring deeper into the temple and risking death and loss of progress or making the trek back to the village to save.  It's a ruthless system and it took me forever to get the hang of it but it ended up making the game more exciting.

It's the only instance where the save system is actually integral to the feel of the game.  Interestingly enough, if you read about the development of the game, they actually started with a normal "save point" system.  They thought it was too normal so they completely overhauled the entire game to fit with this "one save point" idea to make players fear death more than they're used to.

[PenguinHat]

A save system exists to allow the player to leave the game and come back later. Therefore a save system should be designed to allow the player to do this at any time.

I would say that any game that is long enough to need a save system should have a save anytime on exit feature on top of whatever system supports the goals of the design, to allow the player to leave and rejoin play at any time.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Before we start discussing, let's define what are save systems. By definition, they are systems that allow the player to save a game state on a storage device

What about automatic save systems? Those don't allow the player to save, because they save automatically without the player telling it to do so, but they are save systems nonetheless. Immortal Defense and my next game Saturated Dreamers both use automatic saving systems: the game is saved automatically without the player's notice every time the player does something that's worth saving, the player doesn't have to tell it to do so.

It does have this problem potentially:

It also fucking sucks when, as a side-effect of having freedom in a game, you get yourself in a fucked up situation and then you save and you can't get out. No idea how to bypass that without fucking something up, though.

However, if the game is designed right, there should be no point where it auto-saves at a place or in a situation that you can't get out of. For instance, it could only auto-save between missions or when moving between different areas, so it won't save while you're right in the bosses's mouth about to get crushed by his teeth.

I think a big problem with player-chosen saving as opposed to automatic-saving is exactly that: if the player saving at any time is allowed, like in emulation save states, it's very easy to save in a situation where you will always lose no matter what you do. Whereas automatic saving, and save points (as much as I've seen them vilified), get around that potential problem nicely.

[Shambrook]

A player should be able to save anytime they want. If they need to use save creeping to beat a boss then thats the players choice. The game should be designed for the player to have fun, if they hit a brick wall that they can't beat and need to use save creeping to figure out then you're doing something wrong.

[Dacke]

A player should be able to save anytime they want. If they need to use save creeping to beat a boss then thats the players choice. The game should be designed for the player to have fun, if they hit a brick wall that they can't beat and need to use save creeping to figure out then you're doing something wrong.

That's not how fun works for me, actually. I much more enjoy games that let me take on small chunks at a time, like missions you can replay or worlds with a healthy amount of healing save-points. You should never have to replay a big part of the game because you need to leave the computer, naturally. But it feels like much more of an accomplishment to beat a game where saving is considered in the difficulty balance and you don't have to guess how much saving you are "supposed" to do. The phrase "I beat Nikujin" would completely loose it's meaning if you could creep-save your way through it.

[Gnarf]

A player should be able to save anytime they want. If they need to use save creeping to beat a boss then thats the players choice.

And why stop there? If the player needs to take more than one hit before dying in Metal Slug to beat a boss, then that's the player's choice.

The game should be designed for the player to have fun, if they hit a brick wall that they can't beat and need to use save creeping to figure out then you're doing something wrong.

If I know that I won't ever hit a brick wall and be unable to progress then I know that I'll win the game and I might as well not play it and just pretend I played it and won. Not like any other outcome was possible.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Just because a game is designed for the player doesn't mean the player should be free to do anything they want in a game. Imagine if you could just skip levels or have infinite health or so on. Notably, some of the most highly praised indie games don't allow saving at any time -- Aquaria, Cave Story, Iji, etc. I don't think those games would be more fun if they had ZSNES-like save states.