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"Save Game" --> How many saving points? Allow anytime / anywhere...?

A topic by RATASOFTWARE.INC created Jan 20, 2026 Views: 540 Replies: 11

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Hi everyone!

I’m currently working on a project that’s fairly long to play (around 6 / 8 hours).

The game world itself is not big, it’s a single abandoned village and part of its surroundings, and it takes less than 10 - 15 minutes of real time to walk from one end to the other.

I’m pretty sure I don’t want to allow saving at any time from the main menu. Instead, I want to require the player to go to a specific in-game location to save, and my question is: would you prefer having a single save point, or multiple save locations spread across the map?

(Or do you think allowing the player to save anywhere at any time is the better option overall?)

I’d really appreciate your thoughts and experiences., thanks in advance!!!! 😁😁

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DarkBloodbane296 days ago

I prefer having multiple save locations spread across the map. This could encourage exploration knowing that there would save spots to find and save progress.

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mid296 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

An old game of mine had a very small map, and a total 30 minutes of playtime. I made it save automatically on closing, so you could close the game, open it again, and be exactly* where you were. It made for a pretty smooth experience, IMO.

I don’t know about your game, but mine was mostly exploratory. If there are stakes, some threats about, and you want to put pressure on the player, then having fixed save points makes sense. Kind of hard to answer anything specific without knowing what your game is like.

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RATASOFTWARE.INC295 days ago

My game is set in the village where the protagonist spent his childhood, which is now abandoned. In the village is the old house of his parents, his uncles, old friends... this gives me the possibility to activate certain places known and loved by the character (a stuffed animal from his childhood, a photo of his deceased parents...), and let the player feel ‘safe’ and save their game. This way, it would give it a narrative meaning...

It is also a game based on exploration and puzzle solving, but it has touches of horror and mystery, and the player can die (although this is not common if they are careful...).

There will be many hours of gameplay in a fairly extensive setting (10-15 minutes of real time to explore the main map), so I will have to leave a few places to save if I don't want the players to get angry...

Thank you very much for your comment!!!

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Afloof.devModerator295 days ago(+2)

I suppose this depends on if you are expecting the user to “lose progress” while playing the game.

Can the player explore the village and then die from a monster attack or something similar? If that happens, does the player have to re-load to the last save, or do they respawn in a nearby place with all of their items?

If the player is expected to re-load an older save, then you need to make sure player’s don’t lose a lot of progress. This could be one save point in the middle of a small village, or several save points spread out, depending on the game. This is similar to Resident Evil 1.
If the player just respawns nearby and play continues, then saves are only there to allow to dip in-n-out of the game, so having a lot of saves, even autosaving when exiting the game, might be a better idea. This is similar to Dark Souls-esque games.

These are my two cents, the details really depend on your game, but hope this gives you some food for thought :)

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RATASOFTWARE.INC295 days ago(+1)

Thank you very much for your reply! 😁

There is hardly any combat in my game, only if the player plays very badly and is not careful at all.

However, they can die by accumulating horror points, wounds, depression and madness. These points will increase depending on decisions or events encountered throughout their exploration, and can be reduced with items such as alcohol, cigarettes or surgical bandages.

My intention is for the player to play cautiously and responsibly, so I don't want them to be able to save the game whenever they want or activate an auto-save.

As the map of the village is quite extensive (in addition to the interiors of the houses, which also take a long time to explore thoroughly), my idea is to leave 4 or 5 save points throughout the scenario, and use the background to add meaning and narrative coherence to these points. (a childhood soft toy, a photo of their parents, their grandmother's kitchen...)

Thanks again for commenting, I hope you get a chance to play someday!!! 😘

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redonihunter295 days ago

I’m pretty sure I don’t want to allow saving at any time from the main menu.

... why? Don't you use a game engine that would handle this type of clerical work?

Sure, that is a design choice. A bad one in many cases. It is artificial difficulty. For that Resident Evil game, it added another meta layer to the horror. You were facing the real danger of needing to redo the level (and RE is old, so they technically could not save every place back in the day).

Ability to saving a game's state is a meta option. It is not part of the game. For the player it is a quality of life feature, like being able to configure controls.

If you implement saving restrictions, you need to be careful to implement them in a way that it adds to the fun and is not seen as lazy difficulty increase.

A typical restriction would be to not being able to save inside combat or while doing certain puzzles, but allow free saving while doing exploration.

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RATASOFTWARE.INC294 days ago

Oh, it's not a question of laziness; I could simply leave saving enabled at any point on the map, but I think that would worsen the experience.

I think limiting the number of save points and adding a narrative sense to the background of the story and the character as ‘safe’ places for him can create a sense of tension and unease and make the player act more carefully.

In my game, you never die suddenly unless the player makes VERY BAD decisions, so they always know when they are at their limit and need to find its "save place" 😁

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redonihunter294 days ago

That's just my viewpoint. If you restrict saving the game, my advice is, to be carefull, so you do not make people think it is just lazy difficulty increase.

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RATASOFTWARE.INC294 days ago

Its ok, glad to get different points of view, its the reason to post here 🤷‍♂️

Thanks for your comment and hope you can try the game

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redonihunter294 days ago(+1)

I do not think we have completely different views... ;-)

You do want to include it with narrative and use that meta tension. Which should help sell this point to the players.

Though from a design choice, it is an outdated concept. It once was a necessity. And it might be only tolerated nowadays with a good excuse. If I remember correctly, Resident Evil not only had only special save locations, but you needed a ressource to save at all. A limited ressource. Plus the game was difficult.

What I've observed over the years, saving restrictions disappeared more and more. Either you could save practically everywhere, or the game design would make saving the game obsolete. A prominent example is Dark Souls.

From your description above, I would rather expect a game with no save option at all. You would save automatically to avoid losing progress when leaving the game or when it might crash. But you could not load previous save games, only "continue" the game. And there might be some kind of milestones or progress points you might be able to return to, when madness overcomes the character. Like, waking up from a nightmare with your childhood toy in hands.

Restricting saving to certain locations does not solve the issue of save scumming. It's not saving you need to restrict, but loading. Restricting it to your safe house or a specific point in an area just makes save scumming annyoing, but it does not forbid it. Your horror meter and the abilty for a game over places your game more into the roguelike category.

I suggest you think about this point: what do you expect the player to do, when game over due to full horror meter or bad choices, etc, is reached. Redo from last player save. Redo whole game, but with more knowledge on what to do. Redo last chapter. Redo weakened, but not reaching true game over - yet. Something else.

And to a lesser extent, what do you expect players to do, when they made a bad choice, but survive. If they are supposed to play on and still finish the game, you need to restrict loading, not saving. If you just restrict saving, a part of your game mechanics would be to carefully select where and when to save, and redo chapters/chunks till they managed to do it optimal. This of course can be your game mechanic, but it did not seem that this is your intention.

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RATASOFTWARE.INC293 days ago(+1)

I definitely need to think about it... 😅

I think your ideas are really brilliant, and seems you have a lot of experiencie, thanks a lot for sharing and commenting.

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