Still working on Devco Quest (http://www.agsforums.com/yabb/index.php?board=8;action=display;threadid=10114) and I implemented a save/load system where there is only one possible save slot. The player pressed SAVE to save and LOAD to load, finished, the end, nothing more.
I figured it's a small game so multiple save slots are not really neccesary, especially since you can't die or do anything irreversably wrong.
How do you feel about that? I can still create a regular multi-slot save/load system, if that's what people prefer.
So, generally, with short games, would you miss multiple save slots?
Indeed I would, if say perhaps, I wasn't the only person playing the game. When I am home, both my sister and myself tend to play games. Of course, this depends on how short the game is. Still, I see no reason to get rid of a multiple slot saving system, just in case you want to go back somewhere in the game.
-MillsJROSS
No way! Multiple slot kicks ass! I can't describe how much I even hated things like Tomb Raider, when you had to find Save Crystals and crap like that. The only time I've ever liked restrictions on saving is in the Final Fantasy games, when it adds to the adrenaline of the battles or some shit like that.
You should make a game with multiple save slots.
On my hard disk, i still have MI2 save slot when Guybrush falls and has a weird dream.
Man, I can watch that over and over.
...the head bone's connected to the rib bone, the rib bone's connected to the arm bone...
there is a strange phenominon in my house featuring save games. Both me and my brother play adventures, I only have one save file (expet if i know there is a bug and don't want to loose too much progress) yet my brother will use up all other avabable slots with saves such as 0_o and meep. and probably never use them again.
the same with my boyfriend and most male friends, they use save slots willy nilly for every game and then wonder why their hard drives are full. I know someone with 23 save games for final fantasy 9. why? I just get on with it and complete the game. Or is this a symtom of people who have played games in which it is possible to become a walking dead?
yet back to the topic, multiple saves are better for serious gameplay or multiple players. If the game is short enough to be completed in one or two goes your system seems quite neat. as save systems are hard enough to programme!
I liked the saves options in the Adventures of Fatman, where it showed a little piccy of where you'd saved. That was a nice feature. So yeah, multiple slaves.
;)
Well, in longer games I often make other saves in things I want to replay (I even once encountered a glitch in GF which caused Manny to slide around as if he were on ice, but I lost that save in a reinstall. Things like scenes I want to replay many times and such are usually saved. With some games it may be an interesting touch (like TLJ did) to have multiple "users" and each one can save the game seperately (and plays it seperately). However this is of no exceptional use in AGS games. I would still make saves for interesting parts to replay if it's an interesting game.
So, if its a good game, then multiple saves ;)
Howver this is a good idea, so a quick save key that saves to one locked slot (for game progress) and allows the others to be used for specific places.
Multi-users would have trouble with this though, and maybe this should only be used in combination with the user choice.
Also, while we're on the topic, what do you think about auto-saves? are they useful, and how should they happen, all the time saving, or saving at specific points, or specific time intervals, or allowing the user to choose where to save auotmatically or how often, or perhaps a combination of all methods? Anyway soory for this little hijack, it just occured to me. :)
Well the ways i've always done saves, since i was a little kid is this. Well at leats in sierra games. You do the score and the like a word description of where you are eg:
32 woods
But then i got lazy and couldn't be botered naming them so i went kljg (bang on keyboard)and the next few saves wouold be additions to this, eg:
32 woodsfdsgnj
32 woodsfdsgnjhjfhd
And then i would think, hey thats dumb, so i went back to naming them proper. And i saven pretty often. For the older sierra games, we would have like 3 directories of saves for each game. But you needed to save lots in those games...
I never bothered with that. I got into the (probably bad) habit of saving under the name 'Save!!!!!' (always 5 !s). If there was something big happening that would probably lead to death, I would make a 'Save1!!!!!' and on very rare occasions a 'Save2!!!!!'. This did occasionally leave me walking dead, but I've still stuck with that system up to today. I still do it with AGS games today...
I used "Save01" etc. since my very first adventure game. Occasionally "Save 0x description". I eventually had to move on to "Save0xx" on Sam & Max oddly enough. I only ever loaded the latest save anyway, it's not like I was playing Sierra games.
I always named my saves (no score, I dont care about score one bit), and when I was too lazy id bang on the keyboard. In AGS games I usually call The save "Game" or "Play" or something like that, and I do the same in other games for playthrough saves, its only the particular saves I wanted to keep that I named :)
I have this odd paranoia that if I dont save often, I will have trouble, caused not by the fear of dying or screwing up (though that too, despite the fact that I played LucasArts mostly) but by not wanting the game to crash, as I tend to Alt+Tab sloghtly more often than is normal. ;)
If one slot is too few, what is a reasonable number? I guess that you don't really need more than 5 or so? It's just that a non-scrolling load/save GUI with screenshots would be so much easier than one with scrolling... ;)
I always save as namex, this allows no confusion as to who's save slot it is when other people may play the game. I generally use three saves and cycle between them. Perhaps sierra trained me to save often, but I've had occurences when there has been a glitch somewhere, and it's better if I just save at key points in the game. Also, say in TLJ...while death is impossible and there is no walking dead, sometimes I would be stuck, and it would be better if I went to a previously saved game and talked to other people to get hints. (I know there was a journal, and I used it, but I didn't really want to sift through it all to find important information).
-MillsJROSS
10 is the absolute minimum in my opinion. That way more than one person can play the same installed version of the game. Unless you add a multiple user login screen less saves than that would just annoy people who play your game on the same computer.
I'm not sure what the point of not having multiple save slots is, since it takes extra effort to implement such a "feature." If people only need one save, they only have to use one, but what's the benefit of limiting other people?
Well since AGS makes it so rediculously easy to implement save slots, I'd say go with it; even with a short game it adds a touch of professionalism.
Also, one more thing Id like to note is that people can accidentally click on the save button or load button when they didne wat to.. you wouldnt want that, trust me ;) A delete save slot (in multi saves) is also a nice addition to the GUI.
Oh and there can be an infinite number of saves a person wants, so a 10 minimum even if you have screen names (might be a good idea for another reason too, which is spoiling. especcially with screenshots in saves).