#save system

Hey! Thank you for playing at all even with all the issues.

I'm sorry that I took so long to respond to this, I wasn't ignoring it, I was genuinely just thinking about this issue for like, a solid 10 days. And at the moment I don't think I'll add saves for the cogdemo site.

There's a bunch of reasons as to why not, mainly that the game has a save system built into it, so if you lose progress, you make your character and can skip to any chapter of your choice. It's not necessarily exactly like a save file, but there aren't any personality stats or relationship points you lose from using it, since the cogdemos version will stay unfinished, so any major decisions or relationships built won't have an ending or major branching in the current game.

Secondly, if any of you did manage to die in the current demo, you will see that there is a save system, commentary and game play around dying too. (My plan was to make the demons increasingly harder and more likely for mc to die, for some fun stuff towards the end, including an achievement to dying to every demon once in a single run.) And I feel like players will simply reload a safe when realizing they're on a death path, instead of dying and experiencing that extra layer of gameplay (which is also important to experience for understanding an ending in game) I have added into the game.

I'm still on the fence about adding one to the itchio release once it's finished. ATM the beta testers have one simply to skip around and test things out, but I might not keep it.

I'm very sorry that you did experience all these issues however, that's never fun and just adds frustration to what I want to be a positive experience for you.

Itchio does offer a "restore game" option whenever you do need to reload the game, so I feel like that could fix the issue of that. Including the save system I have built and the ability to skip to preferred chapters,,, that might be it. But again, like I said, I am still very unsure about it. BCS I know it can scare readers off, when all I actually want is like. Make them genuinely consider the possible consequences of certain interactions, and maybe experience an (imo) interesting gameplay and lore for when they potentially die down the line.

The current version of the game in the cogdemo site will stay up, but I am reworking it (in case you haven't noticed me mentioning porting and rewriting it into twine).

It's not a perfect solution, but I don't think there will be one.

I’m not sure if it’s just me, but I find that I am unable to save my progress beyond the moment where both my Sherlock and Watson was in the carriage. Beyond that, I can’t seem to save / delete save slots. anymore. I can only load up whatever I have before that point 😭 any advice?

So, I didn't make the save system, so I'm not super duper great at troubleshooting it, and usually, the system seems to fix itself with the classic fixes or a restart. But here's some general advice:

A few things we can try:

Change browser settings (usually, if your tracking/cookie settings are set to strict or private, it won’t work.)

Sometimes the save system needs to simply restart the page, or go to the next page after the save to pop up.

Try a different browser/internet connection/platform (phone vs laptop, etc) to see if that fixes it—so you can pinpoint what isn’t working.

One less general thing that might apply to your case is that maybe you made too many saves? I saw that seemingly breaking someone's system once 😬

Literally my favorite 😍

I just wanted to ask if there was a reason there aren't any save options on itchio?

I'm so glad you love them!!! Loche is definitely one of my favorite characters I've made, they're just so... unique.

There are saves, you just have to be logged in to the website :D

The new website has save slots that save on the server of the website, so that's even better! Dashingdon's saves were saved in your browser's catche, so the saves only existed in the specific browser you were using at the time. But the new cogdemos (or moody.ink) website saves per account, so you can use your saves anywhere, you just have to make an account (it's free) :)

I was also thinking to put a checkpoint system in the game sometime in the future. I don't know how that will work yet, but it's something I wanna do.

They do have a policy about integrating a saving system on their end though, despite the fact SO MANY players and authors ask for it, because in their opinion it removes the "impact" of the choices as you can just go back. Which is dumb as hell in my opinion.

I did do some research and it does seem that you have to manually put in save systems...hence why I use Twine's Sugarcube lol.

That's pretty interesting though, about the saving system. I'm still trying to find the policies on the website, but I don't quite get what you mean. It doesn't have anything against custom save systems, but also having one about having a save system on CoG? They may allow the checkpoint, but not getting to save whenever you want? I guess I can see why it would remove the impact of choices because you are meant to play straight through. Which is probably why I like games where you can go back to save.

But regardless, it's more of a checkpoint system than a proper save system. Basically, when you finish certain chapters, you can chose if you're satisfied with what you did and want to save and proceed, or if you want to restart since the last checkpoint. So it's like a save spot system rather than you being able to save anytime.

Oh yeah, I did experience the checkpoint saving in Guinevere. It was a little frustrating because I hate going all the way back to the last save point just to change a few options and see how it turns out. In my opinion, it’s too much work for me to do…

This is probably why I like Twine games on itch.io and Dashingdon because usually those WIPs have save systems implemented. I’m so used to going back into the game to try out this one option. Or if I’m feeling lazy and it’s available, I click the back button instead.

Published CoG games with ACTUAL save systems must be more rarer then…if games with checkpoint saves are rare, then my typical preference for a game save is even more so.

Does the CoG company have rules against adding a custom save system? I’ll check out the rules after writing this but maybe you cannot have a save system where players can save at any point they want.