Problem Summary

More than often it happens; loading and saving game takes long time.

Use When

• Games that allow storing game progress at any part in the game.
• Player wants to stop the game for personal reasons.
• Real Time Strategy game that takes a long time to manage and build economy.
• Player wants to continue quickly from the last saved stage of the game.

Solution

Quick load may require one to cache the last saved game. Quick save requires one to quickly flush the current game data and sates to disc. One may also need to bring the disc up to speed before auto save is activated to speed up saving. The player should not experience any noticeable delay with quick save. Quick load should take less than a few seconds. Minimize the data that it takes to save the game. While player is playing maintain save state along with game play this will allow saving quickly by just writing data to disk. While game is being loaded it can also cache last quick saved game. If not used flush the cache to free up resources.

Recommendations

• In most cases quick save has only one slot for saving the game. If possible have user defined slots and rotate slots for quick save.
• Give meaningful name if you are using more than one slot.
• Assign easy to remember and access key/button for quick save/load.

Rationale

Offering the quick load and save option increases performance and satisfaction as the player does not have to wait and navigate through several tiers of shell interface to load or save a game. It allows player to get immerse into game rather quickly after a break. It allows player to leave console/PC faster and get back on to game faster as well. This leads to user satisfaction and more game play.

Examples

There many games that offers quick save/load feature. Doom 3, Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus, Half-life and many more.

	Figure 1.Stalker Clear Sky Quick Save
FarCry 2	Game Review
Work around for quick save in FarCry2 Video Game	Your Best Weapon in Stalker Clear Sky the F10 Quick Save Key