Adventure Game Studio

AGS Support => Beginners' Technical Questions => Topic started by: Bavolis on Thu 20/12/2018 03:12:42

Title: Can I Expect Save Game Stability With a Small Patch?
Post by: Bavolis on Thu 20/12/2018 03:12:42
I've fixed a walkthrough break in the Knobbly Crook, which was as simple as re-enabling a UI once you've exited a room. Since Steam will push an autoupdate once I patch - is there any chance this will not work with people's current save games? I know a lot of people are playing it right now and it would be pretty nasty of me to wipe out all their progress.
Title: Re: Can I Expect Save Game Stability With a Small Patch?
Post by: Click'd on Thu 20/12/2018 03:29:35
You could put the patch on a beta branch for the brave. Or provide people with savegames if theirs break.
Title: Re: Can I Expect Save Game Stability With a Small Patch?
Post by: CaptainD on Thu 20/12/2018 09:02:16
From my own (admittedly limited) experience with this, I think you'll probably be okay with a small patch as long as you haven't introduced any new ints / bools etc - probably the same goes for sprites, sound files etc.  At least that's what seems to have broken savegame comparability for me in the past.  Obviously keep a backup of your original version just in case!!
Title: Re: Can I Expect Save Game Stability With a Small Patch?
Post by: Khris on Thu 20/12/2018 12:00:04
Yes, if all you did was add gGui.Visible = true; to an existing function, the savegames should work fine. It's even possible that adding an event function doesn't break savegames. What definitely does break them is anything concerned with storing the game's state.
Some people like to declare some spare variables in case they need them for patching things later.
Title: Re: Can I Expect Save Game Stability With a Small Patch?
Post by: Bavolis on Thu 20/12/2018 13:28:03
Thanks for the advice, everyone!  8-)
Title: Re: Can I Expect Save Game Stability With a Small Patch?
Post by: cat on Thu 20/12/2018 19:40:58
Quote from: Khris on Thu 20/12/2018 12:00:04
Some people like to declare some spare variables in case they need them for patching things later.
That's an excellent advice, I never thought about that.
Title: Re: Can I Expect Save Game Stability With a Small Patch?
Post by: selmiak on Thu 20/12/2018 20:51:27
how would you do that? Global variables? Or 5 variables per room? can you change their names without breaking anything?
Title: Re: Can I Expect Save Game Stability With a Small Patch?
Post by: Crimson Wizard on Thu 20/12/2018 21:08:21
Quote from: selmiak on Thu 20/12/2018 20:51:27
how would you do that? Global variables? Or 5 variables per room? can you change their names without breaking anything?

Only size and the order of declaration in script matters.
Declare a global array of 1000 ints, and then keep subtracting them and adding as distinct variables of same size nearby.

Dave Gilbert also said that they add extra characters etc to use as reserve.