When to start working on saving progress in the game?

Question

Game development

When is the best time to start worrying? After all the main gameplay is completed (at the end of development) or now, when there are still a lot of ideas that will be implemented (at any time), but they will have to be synchronized with saves. More experienced please advise.

Answer 1

I'm sawing my refrigerator, when is the best time to start taking care of the doorknob? After I finish the interior lighting, but then it will have to be synchronized with the handle? Although how to make lighting without opening the refrigerator by the handle ...

Answer 2

so right, if it’s completely good, then of course you just need to keep in mind what it is important to save for the gameplay. what to serialize, etc.
And without bothering too much with the very preservation, protection of seives, and so on. just be aware that these are a couple of variables and here is another inventory and here is the position on the map - it’s better to separate them into separate adapters and then it’s convenient to work through them. at least a local save, at least from the server then get it.
That is, in short, design with an eye to what you will save, and the implementation of the saves can be postponed until later.

Answer 3

For a spherical game in a vacuum, I would start making saves after I made the menu so that the full application cycle can be completed as early as possible. No one prevents you from continuing to work on gameplay in separate test scenes/projects, and no one forces you to immediately save all the mechanics. But at the very least, you will immediately think about what variables you might need to save, and this will force you to re-architecture accordingly, which will make your application more flexible. And in any case, you should not shove a "bunch of ideas" into the main application, experiments with mechanics should not break the stable state of the game. It makes sense to integrate mechanics with saves only after they have been approved.