Not how it's meant to be played, but...

[BennyT8]

When I thought I'd found a bug (characters levelling up to the same level more than once) I looked for the save file to see if there was some evidence that it was real or I'd imagined it. I was surprised to find that it's easy to read. Being curious, I took a copy, updated a single figure on the original, saved it, and reloaded the file. It worked. Slyker's vitality was a whole point higher!

As mentioned, I know that this isn't how the game is meant to be played, but it does give some interesting options. A mandatory character is useless because Marcus has been rolling single-point attribute growths all game? Reset them to what they would be on fixed growth and he's instantly usable again. Picked the wrong class at level up? Change it to the one you really wanted rather than trying to find a save before the mistake.

But you can also try things that are normally impossible. The class you enter doesn't need to be one normally available to that unit. Want to see an army of rogue/assassins sneaking across the field? Do it. Want to see what it would be like with slow tanks and mobile skirmishers? Try it. Want to play the ultimate fragile speedster? Drop the vitality to a single digit and double the movement (Spoiler - it doesn't end well).

Obviously this can be abused. Just increasing the stats makes the game easy, ends the challenge and takes most of the fun out of the game. It's a great game as it is, and I genuinely recommend playing the game the way it's originally intended, selecting different characters for different runs, and so on. But when you've done all of that I imagine this can be fun too.

Has anyone tried experimenting with editing the save files? If you have, did you find any weird combinations that you enjoyed?

[Leninade]

Pretty sure the dev has mentioned keeping the save files unencrypted to give players access should they need to tweak things if they feel they need to. So not entirely unintended, although certainly out of the normal intended path.

[eturulja]

Yeah I have no problems with it, and like Leninade mentioned was the whole reason I left them unencrypted. I want people to have fun the way they want, and it can be a fun way to let people try wacky things. I'll always recommend making a backup before messing with things because one wrong key/bracket and it may not parse correctly. But you can change a ton of things: stats, classes, equipment, denari, enemy AI, etc etc.

If it's something that you find fun I encourage you to mess around with it! That's how I started getting interested in being a software developer. Modding my favorite games and doing wacky things/experimenting, so it makes me happy to know people are doing the same for Those Who Rule.