[SOLVED] Handling Quick Saves?

(Second try, since I had posted this on the C3 forum like a moron)

Hello,

I've just started making an RPG and I'd want to know how to handle Quick Saves on Construct 2.

By Quick Saves, I mean those that are immediately deleted when you load them : they let you save your progress so you can resume later, but prevent save-scumming, unlike regular saves. They're seen in most RPGs, where dying sends you back to your last proper savepoint, serving as a means to stop playing at any point, should something come up, without allowing to save anywhere, which would severely undermine the tension those games need to be fun in my opinion, so it's a pretty big problem.

While normal saving is as easy to perform as choosing the corresponding system action, I can't seem to find anything about making Quick Saves nor do I have any real idea how to do it. Could anybody help me out? Or at least point me in the right direction? ...did I miss an obvious solution like an idiot?

Thanks in advance... and sorry for wasting your time in case this issue was already dealt with elsewhere!

(Second try, since I had posted this on the C3 forum like a moron)

Hello,

I've just started making an RPG and I'd want to know how to handle Quick Saves on Construct 2.

By Quick Saves, I mean those that are immediately deleted when you load them : they let you save your progress so you can resume later, but prevent save-scumming, unlike regular saves. They're seen in most RPGs, where dying sends you back to your last proper savepoint, serving as a means to stop playing at any point, should something come up, without allowing to save anywhere, which would severely undermine the tension those games need to be fun in my opinion, so it's a pretty big problem.

While normal saving is as easy to perform as choosing the corresponding system action, I can't seem to find anything about making Quick Saves nor do I have any real idea how to do it. Could anybody help me out? Or at least point me in the right direction? ...did I miss an obvious solution like an idiot?

Thanks in advance... and sorry for wasting your time in case this issue was already dealt with elsewhere!

sorry, they are not good load/save state on system actions?

—,

I know about these, of course, but is there any way to delete them after use, besides overwriting them? That's what I'd need. I apologize if I worded my issue poorly.

—,

I know about these, of course, but is there any way to delete them after use, besides overwriting them? That's what I'd need. I apologize if I worded my issue poorly.

i don not understand why. you decide when save or load state, overwriting the previous one. I do not understand what sense it has to erase it

—,

It's an RPG thing. You can save your game at specific locations, but sometimes you'll need to stop playing for whatever reason with no savepoint anywhere near you, and that's where quicksaves come in handy : You can stop playing halfway through a dungeon and resume later, but should you die afterwards, you're booted back to the last proper savepoint.

Saving anywhere in a game about decisions-making/strategy isn't a good thing since if something goes wrong, you can just reload and try something else, trial-and-error-ing your way to victory. I don't want that! x)

At the same time, I also don't want to force players into having to play the game for hours at a time just to get anything done, because of scarce savepoints.

Quicksaves are the perfect compromise.

I guess I could have a saveslot that function as a quicksave, saving after every action, so that you have to load a proper save when you reach a complete dead-end or something, but it just doesn't sound right to me as I'm assuming saving after every step would cause some kind of strain on the system... but I'm not too tech-savvy to know for sure.

By Quick Saves, I mean those that are immediately deleted when you load them : they let you save your progress so you can resume later, but prevent save-scumming, unlike regular saves. They're seen in most RPGs, where dying sends you back to your last proper savepoint, serving as a means to stop playing at any point, should something come up, without allowing to save anywhere, which would severely undermine the tension those games need to be fun in my opinion, so it's a pretty big problem.

While normal saving is as easy to perform as choosing the corresponding system action, I can't seem to find anything about making Quick Saves nor do I have any real idea how to do it.

So, When I think of a "Quick Save" feature, I think of being able to quickly save a game, (by pressing a button or icon) without having to go into menus or dialogs, or save points. I'm not sure I understand the need to delete the save. I would make the quick save feature simply save to the same file/location each time evoked, overwriting the previous quicksave.

BUT... If you think there is a need to delete the save, after used, then you're looking at creating some custom metadata for the save and possibly even some custom scripting. The closest thing I could find to what you're looking for is in the How to make savegames tutorial:

Tracking which slots are used

The system save/load actions don't tell you which slots have been saved to. The best way to track this is to store some extra meta-data yourself in the WebStorage object. For example, whenever you save to a slot, also write a WebStorage key that indicates the slot has been saved to. You could add some other metadata like the player name or even a small screenshot of the game as a data URI. Then you can tell which slots are in use from the WebStorage data you've saved. You can perform other operations like resetting or clearing save game data just by adjusting these meta-data keys, such as removing them to make it look like the slot is empty again.

Haven't tried to edit WebStorage objects myself, or try anything close to what is mentioned here but, this may be the breadcrumb trail you're looking for. Only other thing I can think of is, when a player dies, present them with possible saves to load from, and simply do not present the quick save as an option. Hope this helps. Let us know if you figure it out. Good Luck!

Nexis717,

Looks like I've messed up. The correct term was "suspend saves". Sorry for the confusion! :[ Based on what I've done with it, I don't think Metadata would help me, it's typically for keeping track of savefiles if I remember correctly. I'll probably try out the method I've discussed in my previous post and pray that it does the trick... or give up and change my design mentality x) In any case, @RetroInsight, @Nexis717, thank you both for your time regardless

VonFirflirch Like you mentioned, Metadata helps keep track of saves, and as the tutorial mentions, removing that metadata could make it appear that the save was not there. But, if you're looking to "suspend" save, not sure this is the way to go, as you mentioned.

Anyway, happy to help!

Nexis717,

Nevermind, scratch that. I've just realized Metadata was just what I needed. So... uh... Thanks a lot!

Basically,

-Creating a suspend save would save the game in a special slot : "Slot_A_Suspend" or something, as opposed to the normal "Slot_A", Slot_B" and so on;

-Doing so would also create a metadata key;

-Later on, when going back to choose the file you wish to continue, the game checks if the metadata key exists;

---If yes, you can choose to resume from the corresponding "Slot_x_Suspend" and delete the metadata, making it impossible to access the suspend save anymore;

---If not, only the proper save is available.

Welp, one worry down, only a few billions left, wish me luck!

VonFirflirch Thats so awesome! Really glad you found a solution. Thanks for taking the time to let us know how you worked it out. I'm sure this will help someone else in the future.

Can't wait to see the finished product. Good Luck!