So I've been making games for a long time but only recently have I come close to completing one. With that came something I'm not too familiar with - Save data.
Back when I used MMF, arrays were the answer. Seemed simple enough. Collect item, set x,y on the array to a value, then save and load as needed. So I did that, and It worked like a charm..for the first 20 some things I wanted to record. Now it's getting cumbersome. My game has items, item locations, player location, area names, player stats, bosses killed/remaining, and a few other things that all need to be recorded. All of which I must memorize or write down the cell coordinates to.
It's practical considering the small scale of my game, but what happens when I want to make an RPG or something? The amount of data that must be saved for a game like that is just too much to manually code, especially when each cell is referred to as x,y,z.
I suppose INI files would make this a bit easier..but it's essentially the same thing, am I wrong? Also, unless you find a way to encrypt the INI file anyone can open it up and change what they will, provided the group or w/e is already there.
I would just use the built in Save function, but then I feel limited by using it, and it messes with some of the plugins I use.
So yeah. Your thoughts? How do you save your games?