Saving the Game is Shaping the Game: Defining and Understanding the Save Mechanic

Abstract

Saving is omnipresent in games and the mechanic with which to do so can provide new insights and possibilities. In this paper, the save mechanic will be classified and examined, providing the building blocks for further research. This paper will use Lankoski & Björk’s formal analysis of gameplay as its core method, and will be providing a typology for saving in games (Lanskoski & Björk, 2015). The aim is to examine how death, time and the invisibility of saving are connected to the saving mechanic, and what role the mechanic plays in the procedural rhetoric. Using concepts from Consalvo & Dutton such as interaction mapping, and Sicart’s theory on classifications of mechanics, among other renowned researchers, this paper will provide an in-depth discussion into the saving mechanic (Consalvo & Dutton, 2006, Sicart, 2008). The game Undertale will function as an example to show how the saving mechanic can influence the narrative, and highlight how broad the influence is of this basic mechanic in games. By performing a case study on Undertale, a game that uses this mechanic in a novel way supplemented by the method of play by Aarseth and Van Vught & Glas, this paper will examine how the saving mechanic can shape the game (Aarseth, 2003, Van Vught & Glas, 2017).