Lack of save function is harshing my enjoyment

[OrionThePunter]

I remember there being a discussion when the demo came out where Failbetter said they would add a save function in the full release. Unless I'm incredibly dense, I don't think that happened, and I'm curious as to why. I know the runs are only a few hours long and that there's value in making players stick with their choices, but this game isn't all about choices. I have been trying to get a particular dinner event (the basement tentacles) to proc but it just won't happen, despite it having happened seemingly randomly in my first playthrough (at which point I foolishly ignored it). I spent days being as sweet as possible to Horatia in the hopes that she will be so kind as to tell me about the massive tentacle hiding in the basement, but that is apparently unreliable as well. Without spoiling anything, the event I'm angling for is the only way I know of to start a particular storyline, and the sooner it happens, the better, at least if you want to reach its end in the short amount of time the game gives you.

This whole situation would be solved if I could just savescum. It wouldn't make the story less meaningful to me, it would just allow me to actually see more of it. As things are now, with in-game time being so strictly rationed (and autosaved), if I don't unlock the storyline in question before a certain point in the game, I may as well not unlock it at all and just restart, which I have taken to doing. It is not fun. I really wish this autosave-only mode was optional, or maybe you unlocked the ability to save after completing a playthrough, or something.

[Kassu]

I wonder if there could be a way to at least go back to the start of each day in the future, sort of a chapter diary. The game is a bit too long to always start from the beginning and forge blindly ahead.

[hanchan]

Thanks for the feedback!

We're currently developing an update that will lengthen the in-game time significantly and give you more breathing room to achieve your goals.

We'll be able to look into adding manual saving in future, but currently it would break saves every time we updated the game, which we're planning on doing! There may also be additional points where we can interject game saves, this is something we're considering at the moment. :)

[Starr]

It’s One Year later, and I would really like a save feature…

I did three or four playthroughs and I was very close to unlocking the story I wanted, but since I couldn’t save and I had to restart each time I missed it. And I ended up just going on YouTube and watching someone else’s play through…

like do you know how annoying it is, to play 14 days in game, finally unlock everything I need for the good ending ahead of time, but because I decided to go to the trial early, I destroyed my whole save because I didn’t realize it wouldn’t give me the days after the trial to still pursue more story, and it auto saves as soon as you start the trial so there’s no going back. 😭

I normally always do my first play through without walk-throughs and do enjoy the natural mystery of a game, but this game makes it not obvious how to unlock things and then it isn’t even the same if you repeat so it becomes a sludge at some point and I had to take a break 😭