Saving and loading in games is almost an absolute requirement for all but the hardest-of-core genres. There are some good implementations, and there are many bad implementations; on the surface, it is little more than a matter of convenience. However, there are gameplay implications, and game-feel implications, far beyond just managing a play session. Let's start with some of the basic implementations, and aspects thereof, and how they impact player convenience.
No saving, no loading
Early games by necessity had nothing - you had to play through in one sitting; no shutting down and coming back later, no (permanent) checkpoints, no nothing. This was perfectly valid back then, and I would argue that it's still perfectly valid for certain genres, like roguelikes or hardcore games of skill. Not providing any mechanism at all, however, is the ultimate strike against player convenience; you are forcing a singleton play session; truly, 'one and done'.
A certain concession to this came in the form of password game-saves. An unwieldy string of characters and numbers, or an unmemorable pattern, or whatever, as a means of cheaply tracking and restoring a player's game. I have yet to see an implementation of this sort that works well, so I'm putting it under the 'no save' heading. Thankfully, we're beyond the point where this is necessary. One exception: level-skip codes, though this is not really a save mechanism, in the traditional sense.
Menu save / load
A fairly reasonable standby, when any saves are to be involved, is putting explicit save/load operations in a detached from the game itself. The mechanism is there, but in a place that's somewhat inconvenient to reach during an active play session, and not likely to be used beyond major game events, or at the beginning and end of a session. Not a terrible way to do things, if you really don't want to think much about it.
Autosaving / checkpointing
If there are discrete 'levels' or 'events', where a break in the action is warranted, that is (almost) unquestionably a valid time to save; so the game handling this itself is a pretty good implementation. If the game flows from one area to the next, in real time, then there's a real possibility that anything automatic could break something terribly. Even a slight hiccup as the save occurs, poorly-timed in an action sequence, or firefight, or whatever, breaks immersion faster than if it were never there in the first place.
Of course, automatically loading a save can be pretty hazardous, too; especially when you mix in manual saving and loading. Should failure trigger an autoload? Maybe - 50/50 on good implementations here; it can be pretty convenient not to dig through a menu, or find the bound load key, or whatever, but what if the player can still (reasonably) glean information from the situation? Don't pull them back too soon.
As an aside, most of the indicators shown when a save operation is under way are distracting - way too large, way too bright, way too obtrusive. Granted, you want the player to know (most times) that their progress has been noted, but if it interferes with the action(s) on screen in any way...ick. Double-ick if you also put up a dialog of some sort that interrupts the game entirely.
Quicksave / quickload
In terms of convenience, there's a lot to be said for being able to drop out of a game whenever, then come back in and pick up where you left off. The ultimate form of this is one-button save/load - very convenient, and almost an absolute necessity for games where play times are abbreviated, either by the genre or the platform (like mobile).
To a certain extent, all the methods above will encourage what I will call 'careless play' and 'fearful' play. The effects are more pronounced the more convenient the save/load methods are, and if you're philosophically-minded, can really be a mind-twister if you think too much about it.
All the above said, there's one thing that can make or break any implementation, regardless of how it is accessed, maintained, or presented...
Save persistence
The vast majority of save implementations I've seen are permanent fixtures; once you save, it is there, forever, until you delete it or overwrite it or it gets corrupted or whatever. This is the standard, and unfortunately it is more detrimental than helpful long-term. In some cases, saves are single-use ventures; once you load, it's gone, until you save again. This is compounded if the game also forces you to quit right after a save. So, you still have a continuation point, but you have to be decisive about what you're doing.
Personally, I think this is the best way to handle it - it encourages forward progress and prevents scumming for favorable random situations. As a player, it can be inconvenient at first; but if you take the game at least somewhat seriously, it gives your actions some pretty awesome weight and effectively boosts agency.
Saving and loading and game-feel
In terms of game-feel, there's a lot to be said for how saving and loading actually makes sense in the game world. (I also covered something similar in one of my previous posts when dealing with turn-based versus real-time in tactical strategy.) Certainly, as a player, I (usually) want to know that my progress is meaningful, and the last X minutes / hours / whatever aren't entirely lost. But what does a 'save' mean, when I'm fighting for my life (or the life of my avatar)? Am I suddenly invincible, are my actions now pointless, can I throw caution absolutely away?
What is a 'load'? Is it a respawn, an entire nullification of the last few minutes, a jump back in time? I'll admit there's a lot we overlook as players, where notions like 'save' and 'load' don't materially affect our understanding of the game world, but maybe we should be more aware of it. This awareness, especially from a gameplay perspective, can create some pretty severe problems - and not just the existential kind.
Careless play
This is fairly self-explanatory; knowing that failure can be easily reversed at the touch of a button (or simple menu click-through), you become complacent with what the game can throw at you and detached from your actions. Gone are the consequences of failure, or even just that of progress. Had a particularly bad run of the past segment? Reload and try again. Dying at a particular jump, fight, whatever? Save right before. Did okay, but you could do better? One-button reverse!
Things can get so bad at this point that every move, every bullet, every action is immediately preceded (and followed by) a save and / or load. What's the point of even playing the game? You will get no satisfaction on passing those 100 challenges, if you've saved and loaded double that amount.
That's not to say that being careless can't be fun, or even encouraged by the game itself. But especially in games that demand progress, or whose sole purpose is progress - most epic adventures, survival-based games, et cetera - the mechanics of game saves have a profound impact on how the game is experienced. In short, why should the 'hero of legend' care about jumping off a cliff, if he'll just be there again in a few seconds?
Conversely...
Fearful play
Fear is the largest impediment to progress. If you're afraid that you won't be able to overcome the next segment with the equipment, skills, money, whatever you have right now, then saving and loading is your crutch. This will always take away from the enjoyment of the game; you won't ever move on, because you can always do better. Even miracle runs of a particular segment will be wiped away, because you just can't settle for anything less than perfect (even when perfection was there, and you ignored it).
Say, that intro section was supposed to take three minutes. You're now on three hours. Here's a bit of advice - the next attempt is your last. Deal with it and move on.
There's a real problem here, though, where the design of a game can unintentionally exacerbate the issue, even without abusing convenience. If players can become stuck, even or especially of their own accord, because they didn't play flawlessly, they won't want to move ahead. And I mean 'stuck' as in 'absolutely no way in hell you can move on', not 'stuck' as in 'slightly tougher than expected, but still beatable'. Poor design will all but force players to be super-cautious, not because of their nature (which can be another factor entirely), but because the game demands it.
Are there solutions to the above? Certainly, and we already have them:
- Developers, carefully consider if you really need to give players convenient saving and loading. Err on the side of inconvenient, and make double-triple-quadruple-sure your designs won't force your players into fearful play.
- Players, if the game provides quicksave / quickload button / key bindings, don't use them. Seriously, you're just making the game less fun for yourselves.
