Saved game

A saved game, often called a savefile or savepoint, is a piece of digitally stored information. It tracks a player's specific progress within a video game. This technology is vital because modern games are often too long to finish in one sitting. Saving allows players to preserve their achievements and continue their journey later. It also allows for experimentation. Players can try different choices and, if they regret them, reload an earlier state. This prevents the total loss of progress after a "game over."

The mechanism of saving has changed alongside hardware. In early systems, hardware lacked non-volatile data storage, meaning it could not keep information when turned off. To solve this, developers used "passwords." These were strings of alphanumeric characters that encoded the game state. Players wrote these codes down and typed them in later to reconstruct their progress. As technology evolved, games began using external media like compact cassettes and floppy disks. Eventually, developers used battery-backed random-access memory (RAM) inside game cartridges. This allowed the cartridge itself to hold data using a small battery.

There are several distinct types of saving methods used by designers. "Autosave" is a system where the software saves progress automatically. This might happen after a set amount of time or when a player exits. "Suspend saves" are a specific type of autosave used to temporarily interrupt gameplay. In these cases, the save is erased once the player resumes. "Quick-saving" allows a player to save with a single keystroke, bypassing traditional menus. This is much faster but can lead to a "death loop" if a player saves right before a fatal event. Some players also use "save states" in emulators, which store the entire contents of the system's RAM to disk.

Game designers use different saving rules to control the difficulty and feel of a game. Some games allow players to save at any arbitrary point. Others use "save points," which are specific locations in the game world. Save points are often used in complex games to force players to rely on their skills. Some games use a hybrid approach. For example, the game Final Fantasy VII allows saving anywhere on the world map, but requires save points inside towns or forests. Other games, like Eternal Darkness, only allow saving if no enemies are currently in the room.

The history of saving reflects the growth of the gaming industry. Early arcade games from the "golden age" did not save progress. They only recorded high scores, custom settings, and other features. Taito's 1978 title, Space Invaders, was the first to save player scores. The first console game to allow progress saving was Pop and Chips in 1985, which used an AA battery. By 1990, the Neo Geo system introduced the use of memory cards. During the 5th and 6th generations of consoles, memory cards became very common. Today, internal hard disk drives and solid-state drives have largely replaced these external methods.

Some games intentionally remove the ability to save to increase tension. This is often called "permadeath," "iron man," or "hardcore" mode. In these modes, a game over might result in the deletion of the save file. This forces the player to restart from the very beginning. Early examples of this include the game Moria and the "hardcore" mode in Diablo II. In these instances, the character's save data is often managed directly by a remote server. This prevents players from easily manipulating their progress and ensures the experience remains challenging.

Players sometimes use saving to gain an unfair advantage, a practice known as "savescumming." This occurs when a player reloads a save to undo a loss or a bad outcome. For instance, a player might save before a bet in a casino game. If they lose, they simply reload the save to try again. To combat this, programmers use various techniques. Some use deterministic, seeded pseudorandom number generators. This ensures that random events happen identically every time a player reloads. Other systems, like NetHack on Unix, use specific file permissions to prevent users from copying save files to cheat.