“Save Anytime” Can Be a Design Trap

The ability to save is one of the biggest strengths of digital games. But saving comes with a major downside: all the short-term goals players were juggling in their heads go out the window when they leave the game, leaving them lost. The key to creating an effective save system is to focus not on how best to preserve progress, but on how best to preserve goals.

Recaps tend not to work. Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen try to solve the problem of forgotten goals through the brute-force approach of cutscenes at the start of each session, giving a recap similar to that of a TV show. This is not very effective, since the game relies on guessing which events are relevant. Meaningful goals are player-authored, and games can't read minds.

Stardew Valley solves the forgotten goals problem by arranging its rewards so they always follow a save point. In the popular farming simulator, you only save when you go to sleep each night. Most of the rewards you gain for work done the previous day come in the morning, especially the reward of crop growth. This matters because a major source of player-authored goals in games is receiving new resources. Other goal-generating cues also arrive in the morning, such as mail or event announcements, and challenges encourage completion within one day.

Because players save before they receive all the cues that trigger the creation of new goals, and resolve all their short-term goals before the day ends, they lose very little if they come back after a long break from the game. Upon loading their save file and leaving their house, they immediately find new goals to pursue and don't have to worry about forgetting anything.

As tempting as it may be to let players save whenever they want, it risks interrupting their chain of thought. Lost goals mean a lack of direction, delaying their return to flow state. Learn what parts of your game serve as cues for goal creation and then arrange your save points around them. You want cues to occur as early as possible after saves, and you want saves to occur as late as possible after cues.