Quinn Angstrom
[game design] Brainstorming, can someone suggest a situation in which a game would benefit from NOT having one of the following two saving schemes:
Quinn Angstrom
as in using a third scheme that isn't either one
Quinn Angstrom
SCHEME 1
Quinn Angstrom
Player can quicksave at any time, and game saves regularly and automatically.
Quinn Angstrom
The game also stores a log of all previous saves/autosaves, so if you get stuck you can roll back to an older save.
Quinn Angstrom
SCHEME 2
Quinn Angstrom
Game saves automatically after every meaningful decision and on quit, erasing all previous saves. All decisions are irreversible.
Quinn Angstrom
Breath of the Wild scheme, and Roguelike scheme.
Awe
I'm going to generalize here and say that another scheme is acceptable if it serves the story.
Quinn Angstrom
can you give an example?
ғᴏxʏᴍᴏʀᴏɴ
undertale, i think
Quinn Angstrom
ahhh yeah that's a good counterexample
Blighty
undertale was my first thought as well
Quinn Angstrom
a very specific case, because the save/load system is part of the narrative itself
Quinn Angstrom
and the game is using the artifice of save points as a concept to worldbuild and also fuck with the player
Blighty
I would say some games could benefit from both
Quinn Angstrom
what do you mean?
Blighty
Mystery Dungeon/roguelike games that want you to commit to your actions while in the dungeon
Blighty
but outside of the dungeon you should be able to save normally
Quinn Angstrom
hmm, interesting
Quinn Angstrom
so a hybrid system
oh i'm scary
Majora's Mask is another example that ties into the story/other game mechanics.
Princess Emily
nier automata
Quinn Angstrom
although in most roguelikes of that brand, I've seen a permanent autosave system used for the town side as well
Quinn Angstrom
because between-runs progress is usually only upwards
Quinn Angstrom
how does saving work in MM?
Blighty
yeah that's true
oh i'm scary
You save when you go back in time.
oh i'm scary
There are also checkpoints for if you need to take a break mid-loop.
oh i'm scary
But the general idea is that certain changes you made become permanent when you time loop.
Hazard Kitten
and you don't lose equipment, but you do loose expendable items unless you store it
Quinn Angstrom
what would MM lose if it switched to using scheme 1 or 2?
Quinn Angstrom
Nier Automata did something interesting with saves for sure, although it got a bit conceptually odd with it in the back half
Hazard Kitten
MM would lose a lot of it's urgency in scheme 1
Quinn Angstrom
what about scheme 2, then?
Hazard Kitten
with 2 - not sure how that work with the time loop scheme
Blighty
I think MM would work with scheme 1 as long as you couldn't go back to a previous time loop
oh i'm scary
I'm not entirely convinced scheme 2 add anything?
Quinn Angstrom
you can still have checkpoints that the game rolls you back to on a death, I'm not conflating "how you save the game" and "how you recover from a death" necessarily
oh i'm scary
adds.
Awe
that would be very weird for MM
Quinn Angstrom
I mean, it adds the ability to stop playing whenever you want without losing shit
Blighty
it just would be... a different experience
Hazard Kitten
since lot of MM is keeping track of time and the schedules of NPCs
Awe
since you can't fail a side quest so hard you can't attempt it again there wouldn't be a point
oh i'm scary
Well.
Quinn Angstrom
and removes the ability to reset the console to quick-redo something without having to do an in-game time reset
oh i'm scary
The save points are also the warp points and you get the ability to warp pretty much at the beginning.
oh i'm scary
So that would maybe be a little more convenient?
Quinn Angstrom
I think I'm just not understanding these descriptions at all, having not played MM myself
Quinn Angstrom
I don't have a sense for how this system works
Blighty
the big thing is the time loop
time continues linearly and at the end of 72 hours you have to reset time
Blighty
big plot relevant things you accomplished in those 72 hours stick
Blighty
all sidequest related things reset
oh i'm scary
72 in-game hours is somewhere between 2 and 3 in real-time by the way.
oh i'm scary
But there are ALSO owl statues.
oh i'm scary
Which there's one of in every major location.
Blighty
the point of the game is to accomplish all the big plot things while trying the sidequests until you get them right
oh i'm scary
Where you can just do a conventional save if you need to stop playing.
Blighty
they still won't stick but as long as you do it right once you have the reward and you keep it
oh i'm scary
You can also warp to the nearest one at any time.
Hazard Kitten
and the sidequests differ depending on things you do early, and some are mutually exclusive
Quinn Angstrom
what happens in MM if you die
oh i'm scary
You respawn at the entrance to the current area with 3 hearts.
oh i'm scary
No progress lost aside from your physical location.
Quinn Angstrom
I mean, it sounds like MM practically already uses scheme 2
Quinn Angstrom
it would just make owl statues be warp points
Quinn Angstrom
and you don't have to conventionally save to stop playing
Quinn Angstrom
otherwise nothing would change
Quinn Angstrom
so even more like scheme 2
Blighty
yeah i more or less it is scheme 2 with the added loop reset mechanic
Quinn Angstrom
yeah, the loop reset is less of a save/load thing and more just part of the flow of the game being about time travel
oh i'm scary
Yeah, but I was a little annoyed by it being removed in the 3DS remake.
oh i'm scary
In which the owl saves are just standard Metroid-save-point permanent saves.
Quinn Angstrom
about what being removed
oh i'm scary
Saving on time reset.
Quinn Angstrom
I'm confused
penis bacon
the 3DS version no longer autosaves when you go back in time and you have to use the owl statues, to save normal saves
penis bacon
So it actually went backwards.
oh i'm scary
Yeah.
Quinn Angstrom
that for sure sounds like a worse version, but also basically the opposite of the scheme I'm proposing here
penis bacon
But yeah, the only examples I can immediately think of that breaks those two schema and do so without feeling bass-ackwards and janky are ones that basically use the mechanic of saving in a strange, metafictional way (Undertale, to a degree Nier Automata)
oh i'm scary
I was thinking you were suggesting autosaves taking the place of saving on reset?
Quinn Angstrom
I'm suggesting, like...
Quinn Angstrom
dark souls.
Quinn Angstrom
the dark souls saving system.
Quinn Angstrom
you put down the game, then you come back to it, and it's right where you left off.
Quinn Angstrom
nothing in the game that actively 'saves', just continuity between play sessoins.
Quinn Angstrom
sessions*
HotXC
we have the technology
oh i'm scary
Anyway.
oh i'm scary
I apologize for making this entire plurk be about The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, which is my quirk.
oh i'm scary
It's the power of my stand.
Quinn Angstrom
I'm totally here to defend my two-pronged ultimate save schemes in specific use cases so I don't mind at all
Quinn Angstrom
I do however totally concede that some games use saving in interesting metafictional ways
Quinn Angstrom
but other than those
Quinn Angstrom
I really do think that schemes 1/2 cover basically everything?
HotXC
has anyone done password saves in an interesting metafictional use?
Quinn Angstrom
I don't think so
Quinn Angstrom
probably because password saving is a hell that we have thankfully escaped
dragon time
First one seems like it would start chewing up memory pretty fast
Quinn Angstrom
if your save structure is complex enough that it's a memory issue, you could store the last X autosaves
dragon time
That would be good
Quinn Angstrom
but on modern hardware it's seldom gonna be an issue outside of like mobile games
Quinn Angstrom
because a save is gonna be like 1kb and harddrives are into the terabytes
dragon time
(Good hardrives are into the terabytes)
Quinn Angstrom
I mean, even with a 100GB hard drive, that's 1000 saves to get to 1 MB
Quinn Angstrom
which is 0.001% of your space
Blighty
i think this is an easy variant of scheme 1 but I also sometimes want like
the ability to play two diverging paths and have saves in both of them at the same time without overwriting the other in any way
Quinn Angstrom
yeah I think in an ideal implementation you have like
Quinn Angstrom
the autosave log and the manual save log separately
Quinn Angstrom
so you can just manualsave, then do a bunch of shit, then load the manual save to do a bunch of other shit, and keep both
Quinn Angstrom
obviously a lot of the more frustrating saving schemes from the past weren't because people just didn't think of these or anything like that
Quinn Angstrom
it was tech constraints
Quinn Angstrom
you couldn't keep 20 autosaves on a NES cartridge battery
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