FUNDAMENTALS OF GAME DESIGN, SECOND EDITION

Reasons for Saving a Game

Reasons for saving a player's game or allowing him to save it include these:

■ Allowing the player to leave the game and return to it later. This is the most important reason for saving the game. In a large game, it's an essential feature. It's not realistic and not fair to the player to expect him to dedicate the computer or console machine to a 40-hour game from start to finish with no break.

■ Letting the player recover from disastrous mistakes. In practice, this usually means the death of the avatar. Arcade games, which offer no save-game feature,
traditionally give the player a number of lives and chances to earn more along the way. Until recently, console action games have tended to follow the same scheme. Richer games, such as role-playing or adventure games, usually give the player only one life but allow him to reload a saved game if his avatar dies or he realizes that he cannot possibly win the current game.

■ Encouraging the player to explore alternate strategies. In turn-based strategic games, saving the game allows the player to learn the game by trying alternative approaches. If one approach doesn't seem to work, he can go back to the point at which he committed himself and try another approach.