Hello all you reading this!
Today we are going to talk about how using saves and checkpoints can be crucial to your game and the experience the player has. I’ll be doing this by dissecting a few games.
So first let's talk about why saves are important:
Saving a game is important because it lets the player stop and pick it up later. This is important because you DO NOT want to make your player feel forced to play for a long duration of time, they will eventually stop and not start it again because it is too much effort. It is no longer a pleasure but a chore. You also risk making the player bored.
This is why auto save was made. It makes it easy for people to pick up and put down the game when ever, also this helps cut down the wait times for saving, because all the saving is in the background and not interrupting your play session. This also works as a checkpoint system for a lot of games which is a nice feature to have, but this can take away a lot from further developing the experience, which will be talked about later.
So let's talk about games that use checkpoints and saves in a way to help the experience.
First I want to talk about a classic game: Resident Evil:
I never played the whole series and nothing past Resident Evil 5 so I will talk about the first few games.
In the original games you would have to go to typewriters to save BUT WAIT here is the catch you have to find ink ribbons to use the typewriter to save. If you do not already know Resident Evil is zombie survival horror game. Making the player find ink ribbons to save sounds bad right? It actually helped create a high level of tension and add to the fight for survival.
Now having to find items to save probably wouldn't be best and honestly I think Resident Evil will be the only one to pull it off properly. You have to balance the number of items you can find to save and where they are located. Too many and it comes to a point where it is just a useless mechanic, to little and it makes you play for too long, possibly get bored, or make it to hard.
While another game does something like this: Dark Souls. DISCLAIMER: I HAVEN’T PLAYED THIS. But I do know that Dark Souls is a punishing and hard game where your check points are bonfires. This is a game of adventure and survival and having the bonfires as a check point and save station like Resident Evil helps make you feel a sense of tension and fear of dying. When you die you lose your humanity and have to travel back to that spot to get it. But how far back was that bonfire? This is where the tension is. Since this game is punishing you need to find bonfires to save and this will help you progress or you will always be put to far back when you re-spawn, which is a hindrance because what you just went through you might not be able to do for a few more tries, meaning you would lose all the humanity you could have picked back up..
Now games like Fallout and Deus EX Human Revolution are games with adventuring, side quests, and choosing how the game unfolds. Here is the thing their checkpoints are the last save or any save you wish to choose in some cases.
What both have is a feature I truly love. SAVE ANY TIME ANY WHERE. When you load the game it’s exactly where you saved from the exact same point, also you have unlimited save slots. This is nice because you can increment your game experience and go back to where ever you have saved to replay a portion or try something new. Maybe you made a mistake and you need to go back a hour before to get what you forgot. It also lets you checkpoint the moment you get right past that hard spot or after a cut-scene, which can be a major relief.
In a game where you have a lot of freedom on how you play or decide how the game unfolds this on the fly saving feature is nice, letting you replay a level, replay and learn, then actually pass it. It leaves for a good amount of added hours.
One thing Fallout does that I like is “Quick Save”; Quick Save is the first option you can pick on the pause menu. Press pause and then the confirm button, now a quick second later you’re back to playing with a checkpoint ready for you to continue. These are really handy when you’re about to make a big decision or about to have a major encounter..
Now when you look at the Skate games they have a really nice check point system. In skateboarding games you always try to nail a wicked run and do awesome tricks. Well this means you end up really far from where you started and now it is really tedious to get back to the where you started. So what Skate does is let you place waypoints freely. (on PS3) You would hold L1 and then press down on the D-Pad, now your waypoint is set on the fly with no loading, You would go through your run and at the end you hold L1 and press up on the D-Pad for a second and you will spawn back at where you placed your way point, depending how far you are you may need to load. But this an amazing way of making your own checkpoints and streamlining fun.
The last game I want to talk about briefly is Ori and the Blind Forest. DISCLAIMER I NEVER PLAYED THIS. But this a game where you place your checkpoints and save spots on the fly, BUT it uses in game resources which are limited. So what can be a fun and challenging side scrolling platformer game is now coupled with a challenging checkpoint system that you will have to master and learn how to pace yourself to progress,
(Here is an article that goes into better depth on Ori and the Blind Forest:)
I just wanted this game to be mentioned for it’s unique mechanic. :)
Well thank you all for reading and have a lovely evening :)
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