Hey, quick question !
Do we have to download every new version of the revamp and lose our previous saves or is there a way to just update the version we already got ? So we keep our saves
heya. so the answer to that is sorta complicated and i'm not sure if you're playing it on pc, mac, or android. So in general, your old save files should be pulled into each new version and those old saves should load fine and work if you want to replay a specific scene or something. however, if you keep playing the game forward from that point, any new material that wasn't in the previous version could (and likely will )get screwed up (either resulting in an error or just blindly skipping parts of the story without telling you). the only real exception to this right now is on the android port which i had to recreate from scratch for v18 so it's using an entirely new key now and that broke everything saved before it. hopefully, that wont be an issue in the future and I'm hoping it will pull previous saves to newer versions.
right now, each new version requires a full download. there's probably a way to create an actual update program but that's beyond my skill level. i'm a psych major dude, i've literally googled every step of this process from scratch and still have no idea what i'm doing 😆
the reason that old saves dont work in the newer version is because the choices in the game establish variables in the coding that end up being used later. those variables have to be declared at the beginning of the game so if i add any new variables in an update, it will break the game moving forward with anything related to that new choice because it wasn't declared at the beginning. Now... with the revamp, i pulled all the old variables into the game from the original so, in theory, it shouldn't break that often. however, in the course of the writing, sometimes i've changed things or cut parts or reorganized things and that required a new variable that wasn't in the original.
so basically some new updates may actually let old saves work while others will crash it. because i'm amateur as hell at this, i only work on one section at a time so i dont really plan ahead for things like that the way that a skilled coder would be able to. I did create the chapter select thing for a way to help speed up this process if you want to recreate a save. you can just jump to the chapter you want from New Game and then if you hold down CTRL, you can fast forward through shit suuuuper quick. i know it's not ideal but this thing is also still very much in alpha as a whole and i'm still just stumbling through it 😏
haha. thanks man. the android port is jacked right now and i'm pretty open about that. it was my first attempt making one after losing access to the original one. i could have outsourced it but in the past, the android port has requested specific permissions to view phone data sometimes (although I'm hearing less of that now so I think the newer models aren't running into that problem anymore) and I wanted to ensure that i was putting out a safe product and could openly and honestly tell people what those permissions were addressing. best way to do that is do it yourself on your own rig. however, i had to learn from scratch on that. so the android port is massive and dumb right now. I'm going to hopefully address more of the issues with it in the next update cause i know yall were patient with this one being my learning curve.
unfortunately, starting over with the port meant old data and saves were no longer compatible and i know that sucks. hopefully it wont be a problem moving forward.
in terms of the desktop version, i'm always going to encourage people not to use old saves to progress the game forward just because it can and will skip stuff. not every update is affected that way buuuuut i'd still say like 80% of them probably are so it's just a good practice to avoid to. however, feel free to save and replay old scenes. i do :) i literally run the park scene every time before i dive into the next playthrough. it always pulls me in where my head needs to be