Save scumming as it's commonly known is the practice of saving
just before making a risky move in a game and then
Reloading it until either the RNG gods are forever in your favour or you know
All of the information that was supposed to be hidden like exactly
where the enemies are for instance in order to get the perfect result
Some players decry it while other players say
it's inevitable and embrace it
But the real question is how do we design around it?
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As designers one of our goals is always to make our games engaging and you know, what's not engaging
reloading your game 10 times and doing the same move over and over and over again until you happen to get a critical hit and
Yet if that's the optimum play pattern
Especially if there's things at stake like character permadeath hitting some achievement or unlocking some new powers or equipment
players are gonna feel like they have to do it and
Those that refuse to play the save and reload game
are going to feel punished for not doing so
But before we talk about
how to design around this behavior
We should discuss the question
that rages on fan forums everywhere
Is this behavior cheating? As a designer James kind of doesn't believe in the concept of cheating and single-player games?
And I'm right there with them. You're playing a single-player game for you
So in that case play them any way you find satisfying now does saving and reloading all the time go against the designers intent?
I mean, yeah
maybe
But you also don't have to read a book in the exact way the author intended for you to get the most out of it
So doing away with the idea that save scumming is inherently bad or makes you a bad person for doing it
We're gonna focus on how to keep your game engaging if it encourages that type of behavior
But what type of games do encourage this type of behavior?
Well, we've already touched on it a bit but really it's any game that has all of the following to some degree.
Randomness or hidden information which makes it possible to change the outcome of an action if you reload you're safe. And
incentive to reload your save such as better rewards or better clear times and it needs to be the sort of game where you can
Realistically anticipate and save before events. You might want to try over and over again
And if your game has all three of those things there's still one last ingredient
it's gonna need to create an environment where players will reload over and over again in search of the best results: a
Generous save system getting rid of any of the other parts will eliminate save scumming as a player behavior.
But if you want all of those other component parts in your game namely randomness and reward for optimal performance.
Then the easiest way to keep players from save scumming is
Restricting when they can save and relying on a robust
Infrequent autosave system and not allowing players to save freely can cure your game of save scumming and is a good start.
However, restricting where players can save leads to other problems
Especially of strategy games where this most frequently comes up
Because no one wants to play 20 minutes of a game much less three
hours of one only to find out that they lost due to a move somewhere in the middle of that time and now they have
To start all over again
Which means if your game only saves between missions or battles and your battles run long?
You're setting your players up for frustration
This can be alleviated by essentially having restore points in your save system where your game?
auto-saves every move as well as whenever the player exits the game, but also
holds on to a library of saves that are visible to the player that are juuuuuust
Far enough apart to discourage reloading the most interesting option though
If you're thinking about it from the outset of your design is to have metrics in your game
Which vaguely indicate the players chance of success in a scenario in a strategy game?
it might be comparing the total value of all the players units and equipment to the total value of the enemy's units and equipment or
in an RPG
It could be something as simple as comparing HP and MP totals and then using that information
To have the game itself pick the save to reload when the player loses
The game would still be saving after every move or in real-time games after short intervals
But those saves would be invisible to the player and instead at the game over screen. It would ask the player
Would you like to try again from here and show a screenshot of when things were still firmly in the players favor?
This takes saving and reloading out of the players hands, but still gives them a non frustrating place to restart from hey
But what if you don't care, that's right
What if you are a hundred percent on board with save scumming and everything that entails well?
Then there's a different sort of design you have to do you have to think about your game holistically to make this process
enjoyable for instance
You could do something small and cheeky like what?
Undertale did by changing the dialogue of characters
If you reload a save in order to change the outcome of an event
But on a larger scale if the joy of the game is actually in always performing optimally
In uncovering all of the hidden information and then utilizing that to find the best answer to whatever
Challenge the game has presented you then save scumming itself is actually the intended play pattern, which can be very cool
But understand that as a designer if that's what you're building for. You're essentially building a puzzle game
It may have the trappings of a strategy game or an RPG and it may even use their mechanics
But conceptually as the designer you have to think of each move and each scenario as a puzzle
It's really a cool way of thinking
I mean for an example of this just take a look at all of the awesome puzzle modes digital card games have presented us
I mean that's essentially auto-saves coming right there because there's usually a save state of a single turn that reloads if you don't win
So is save scumming bad I don't know is broccoli bad
I mean, they're both kind of personal choices
But what we're saying here is if unplanned for the type of design that can lead to save scumming can create an erroneous task that
Every player feels like they have to do and can really drag down the pace of your game
But like most other elements of design if you know your game encourages this behavior
You can just think around it and make it as positive for the player as possible. Actually Zoe
I think I can do that last line better. Let's take it back
And make it as positive for the player as possible now that was game showy, okay, hold on reload reload reload
And make it as badass for the player as possible, what am I in a biker gang hold on rewind do it again
He has low low mass positivo posible para el jugador good that might have been better if I actually spoke Spanish. Thanks for nothing
Google, translate one more time. We got this
And make it as positive for the player as possible nailed it sorry show me the score
Alright, I mean if the internet so, I guess that's an S ranking
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