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Problem Summary
The player wants to restart their progress in the game from a certain point, but there are no saved games at or close to that point.
Use When
Your game allows the storing of game progress (such as story based/role playing games, some first person shooters, adventure games, etc.) and the player might encounter a situation where he or she does not have a saved game close to or at the desired restart point. This situation can occur for some of the following reasons:
- The player may have forgotten save the game at the desired point.
- The player may have overwritten an existing saved game at the desired point with a more recent saved game.
- The player is unhappy with a certain outcome or result achieved from a lengthy game sequence and has not been allowed to save normally.
- The game is difficult and might cause the player to load a saved game frequently.
Solution
Automatically save the game for the player.
In order to prevent player frustration and/or error, the game should automatically save the player's current progress to a special, separate save file/slot at certain points during game play. There are different strategies that can be used to implement this pattern:
- Auto. save at regular time intervals (e.g. every 5 minutes).
- Auto. save after certain events (e.g. after defeating a boss enemy, achieving a certain goal, reaching a specific location, etc.).
- Auto. save during breaks in a multi-part battle sequence.
- Auto. save at the same time as another pause in the game play (e.g. during area transitions/level loading).
Some of the above implementations could utilize a background thread with the sole purpose of creating auto. save files.
Recommendations
- In order to avoid filling up the player's memory with saved games, limit auto. saves to one or a few slots.
- Try to keep any notifications about an auto. save as minimally intrusive as possible (if there is any notification at all).
- Distinguish the auto. save file(s) from user saved files somehow; possibly using a different color or special text.
Rationale
If the player does not have to replay the game all the way from a previous save point that may be minutes or hours old, it will increase player efficiency and satisfaction. Some players might also be impatient and not save his or her game often enough. Also, some players might not want to interrupt the immersion with controls not directly related to the game play.
Examples
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