GameMaker Studio - Saving and Loading Tutorial Video Lecture - Game Maker

[Music]
alright guys welcome back so this week
what we're gonna be looking at is
another highly requested tutorial on
saving your game and loading your game
so here I've just created possibly the
best game anyone has ever made ever
actually so here is our menu to start
with start continue and quit continue
doesn't do anything yet
that's where we'll be implementing our
load game feature but if we go to start
right now we'll see our very very
exciting level one where you play as
this mysterious green circle trying to
find blue square and then I doin now I'm
on level 2 that was very exciting so
here we go about reached level 4 open
we're on level 3 okay things are getting
stressful now it's getting a bit
difficult but I think we can just about
make it to level 4 and there we have it
we have completed the game now because
I'm really really good I was able to
finish that game without you know with
with no real trouble at all
but you might get say like level 2 level
3 and I don't know you might get stuck
for there for a long time and you might
want to save your game and come back to
it later you know you don't want to have
to tackle those four very difficult
levels all in one go so I'm gonna teach
you how to do today is some how to make
it so your player character
automatically saves your progress as you
go between these levels saves out to a
file that then when you start your game
up again and press continue you'll be
able to start from where you left off so
it's gonna be a very bare-bones auto
save and continue' system that you can
then build on top of and expand however
you want your game to work with saving
and loading ok so the very first thing
that we want to do is make it so that we
save our progress as we carry on with
our game so at the start of every level
we're going to want to save the bank
that we've reached that level out to a
file
later on we'll use that file to tell the
game where we've gone up to when we hit
continue
so our player object is not seen on
every single one of these levels is easy
level you could use like a persistent
object or something as well a bunch of
different ways you could set this up but
for now I'm just going to use the player
object to actually save our game at the
start of every level so I'm gonna add an
event in here we're gonna go to other
room start and so this this code here
will execute at the start of the room
only once not when the player is created
but when but when the level starts so
and I'm gonna go to our usual execute a
piece of code and what I'm gonna type in
here and start with is we're gonna check
to see if we already have a save file so
we're gonna say if open brackets file
exists as you might guess as all this is
going to do is check to see if this
learn file exists save don't staff is
what we're gonna call our run name of
our save file and if that's true we're
gonna say file delete save dot sound so
basically all we've done here is check
to see if our save file currently exists
and if it does we're deleting it I
should probably explain where this this
file this will be a file that will
create and game maker by default is
going to work in your your app data
directory that it will make for handling
files like external files to your game
you can learn a ton more about how
exactly how the file system works and
how to save to want different locations
you can save to on different platforms
by simply pressing f1 and going to go to
the index and type in like file system
it should bring you to a page that
explains everything about the file
system in gaming but for now all you
need to know is that this file exists in
our apt a a local update a folder for
our game and so I'm just making up the
name of the file and that's the file
that we're going to use to to write some
text that will save the location of our
player in our very exciting game
so the next line we want to do is we
want eyeball save file something similar
equals file I'm just go text underscore
open underscore write break it
save dot 5 close bracket semicolon so
here we've just we've created a variable
called save file and we're going to use
that to refer to the file that we're
opening - right - so we're opening saved
our SAP now we've checked to see if it
already exists and if it did exists then
we've we've deleted it to get ready to
overwrite it essentially it's just an
easy way of just saying no autosave so
you know we check if the save already
exists we get rid of it and we save
another one you might want to do like
you know like are you sure you want to
overwrite you're saying depends exactly
how your system is going to work but
here we're just gonna also say we're
going to automatically save over
whatever our last safe game was so now
that we've opened this file to be
written - we're also going to create a
variable same room we're going to just
set that equal to room when room
contains the the index of the room that
we're currently in so it'll contain like
over here like level 1 level 2 level 3
or level 4 it just contains the index of
the room then what we're gonna do is a
good type file text right real Open
bracket save file comma save room so now
what that does is it's going to take the
file that we've already opened save file
and simply write text into it and it's
going to write the text save room which
is the variable that contains our room
indexes she's going to write our room
index into this file simple as that and
then all we need to do is go file text
so close close close save file
semicon and that's really yet for our
really bad bones autosave system so the
start of every room it's gonna say does
this final exists if it does already
exist delete it then open the save file
like create a new version write save
file under the variable save file stick
our room name into a variable and write
that variable into the save file really
very simple and then just close the save
file so that we free up that memory
really is as simple as that and now
you'll notice if we go to run our game
if you keep an eye down here in the the
compiled form if I go to start you'll
see down here like output file is see
users shown day at their local saving
saved us app and if I go to the next
level you'll see it's done it again look
at the start start the level output file
and it's telling you that it's creating
this file which is very very handy for
debugging so you can see exactly when
your game is creating these files and
where it's creating them as well so as I
said it's in the local app data the
project name is saving and that's why
it's local forward slash saving it's not
just saved us out so now we have a save
on level 4 that should contain the name
of this room which is a level 1 just go
for this is all for so and close that
now so now what we need to do is write
in our load game function so in order to
handle loading the game I've created
this menu at the start the game with a
continue option if I go into object menu
up here and see release enter if it's on
continue it's gonna execute this script
called SCR underscore load game bracket
bracket you can you set this up however
you want however you want to show up
your menu the point is eventually when
whenever I want to load the game I'm
gonna execute this script which is SCR
underscore load game which as you can
see currently does absolutely nothing
that's what we're about to change so the
first thing we want to do is we want to
check to see that there is actually a
safe file present
so we want to say if file exists save
dots have bracket opening bracket close
bracket and then so this is where we
want to put all the stuff for actually
loading the game if the file doesn't
exist and else then we can just do
nothing yes maybe you want to say are
there's no no file to load or maybe you
want to just start a new game or
something maybe you want to do something
else but for now I'm pretty happy with
just the game doing nothing if we don't
have any file to actually load so if we
do have a file to load however what we
then want to do is type in var load file
equals file and just got a text on the
skull open underscore read this time
instead of right so instead of opening a
file in order to write something to it
we're opening it in order to read from
it and we're going to open saved on sap
since we've confirmed that exists and is
our save file the next thing we want to
do is find bar loaded room equals file
tax read real load file and now
basically that's going to using the file
that we've just opened for reading it's
going to read its contents into this
variable which is loaded room so now
loaded room should contain everything
that was contained in on save file which
means if you remember what we say to us
a file was the name of the room that
we're in so all we need to do now first
of all we're just going to close this
file so far because we don't need
anymore we've got the variable we need
out of that file text closed load file
then all we need to do quite simply is
room go to
loaded room and that should send us
straight to the room that we've gotten
out of our same file so as you remember
last time we quit on level four so if I
start the game up now and I go to
continue you see we're on level four now
if I close the game run the game again
start the game on level one I'm on level
two I'm on level three and as you can
see it it's out put the file save each
time so where it should be on level
three now so if I close the game load
the game and I want a carry on where I
left off go to continue this is level
three and you see it's as simple as that
works really really well for such a
really very simple system dozens of
different ways you can expand that
there's loads and loads and loads to do
with on file writing and saving to loads
of different things you can do but
hopefully that is enough to get you
started with a simple saving and loading
system so yeah thanks for watching guys
I hope you enjoyed that hope it was
useful for you I'll include a link in
the description so you can download this
project so I mean there's a bunch of
more things you might be able to get out
of this like the full menu I set up at
the start and you can explore that and
copy it in your own game get it going
yeah I hope this was useful and I'll
catch you next time see you guys