My biggest complaint - inability to tempsave in run

[theegravedigger]

If I'm taking my time and working my way through, it currently feels very frustrating to have to decide between leaving my computer running and afk or ending my run early because I've run out of real world time.

Having a single-use save, that can be saved to allow you to exit the program and return on your return would solve this. There may be design reasons this wouldn't work, but as someone who plays in small chunks sometimes, it's something that would significantly improve my play experience.

[NorionV]

I do feel like this is a given, and it's strange it's not already in the game.

My guess is they didn't add it as a soft block against save scumming? Closing the game resets the day, so it'll be much harder to just reroll rooms to get the one you want.

But like cheating, in singleplayer games - I just don't care. You harm more than help trying to combat people playing the game in different ways than intended. It's acceptable in multiplayer games - but not here.

[Mahaloth]

It's been nice on Steam Deck because you can go into stand-by mid-run and quit.

[sobakka]

+1

I'm surprised more players aren't asking for mid-run saves. I think any concerns about save scumming are small compared to how much of a QOL improvement this would be. (Depending on how the randomness is implemented, reloading a door selection might not change the blueprint choices anyway.)

Better runs are longer runs (some of mine have gone more than 2 hours), and it becomes increasingly frustrating to lose that progress if you need to quit the game.

I suspect not having mid-run saves is about prioritizing technical features, the same reason rebinding controls isn't supported right now. Pacific Drive is a game where the community asked for mid-run saves at launch; the devs said it was too complicated technically. A few weeks ago (a year after launch), they finally added them.

Blue Prince devs -- if you read this, I'm really enjoying the game.

Pls add mid-run saves (!)

[No Face]

I agree with the OP. I don't even want true saving, I just want to be able to quit mid-run and come back where I left off. Don't even need a true "save system" (which I tend to agree would undermine the spirit of the game).

In fact, it makes the game almost unplayable for me that this feature doesn't exist, since puzzle length and run length is variable, I don't even know how much time I need to set aside to play the game.

[Bernard Peur]

I've just bought the game, i did avoid spoilers as much as possible but i understand that some runs can go on for 40 min, an hour or even more in the late game. 3/4 of my play session nowaday aren't more than 30 min top.

Thank Valve for the steam deck ! But I don't understand how that's not a possibility...
I plan to do it with my partner and would prefer to play on a big screen (so not the deck).

Does the dev' have talked about adding this feature ?

[Qwertystop]

I'm in my very first day and (in large part due to taking lots of notes) it's taken two hours. I still have 33 steps, five different items, and half the estate not yet explored, but I'm out of time to play and probably won't be able to play tomorrow either.

[(Edgy) Asriel Dreemurr]

Something like the original Majora’s Mask owl statue saves on N64. Where you could make a save to come back to, but once you load the save it’s deleted, so you can’t save scum?

[Melbac]

Originally posted by (Edgy) Asriel Dreemurr:

Something like the original Majora’s Mask owl statue saves on N64. Where you could make a save to come back to, but once you load the save it’s deleted, so you can’t save scum?

On PC you can simply make a copy of the save file. Doesn't matter if the game deletes it.

[rumpelstiltskin]

i don't think it's about "savescumming". you can easily savescum souls games and miyadzaki doesn't care. most likely the devs are just sloppy. maybe they didn't care about saving at first, and when most systems are working it can be harder to add saving if the they weren't designed with saving in mind to begin with.

[Celebrim]

I agree this would be a great feature, but I don't think this is a trivial task. Storing the state of an active run would require a lot more information (position, item locations and states, etc.) than what appears to be saved between runs currently.

I hope they add this, but I don't think it's just a switch to turn on. They will have to devote development time to it.

[somebodybond]

I agree that this is not a simple thing to add, but I also think it's sorely needed.

[Joe Biden Gaming]

Hard agree. It's especially weird since the menu already has a Save & Quit option, that does the exact same thing as the Call It a Day option.

Plus I don't get the arguments about save scumming, it's a single player game if you want to cheat that's up to you.

[theegravedigger]

Originally posted by Joe Biden Gaming:

Hard agree. It's especially weird since the menu already has a Save & Quit option, that does the exact same thing as the Call It a Day option.

My theory based on that is that it was something that they'd intended to have, but it created issues, so they axed it to get the game out, and they'll eventually adjust it. Or it's leftover from an earlier design.

[theegravedigger]

Originally posted by Celebrim:

I agree this would be a great feature, but I don't think this is a trivial task. Storing the state of an active run would require a lot more information (position, item locations and states, etc.) than what appears to be saved between runs currently.

I hope they add this, but I don't think it's just a switch to turn on. They will have to devote development time to it.

Agreed. And it is something I've gotten past as I've played more.

[theegravedigger]

Originally posted by (Edgy) Asriel Dreemurr:

Something like the original Majora’s Mask owl statue saves on N64. Where you could make a save to come back to, but once you load the save it’s deleted, so you can’t save scum?

I hadn't thought of that, I was thinking of the Fire Emblem games and some other RPGs that had an in-battle save that would be single use, you could resume from them, but doing so deleted that save.

Though as people have pointed out, that can be abused on a PC where you can create the file. And then you get into whole arms race of preventing that or not, kinda a waste of time.