How do people design the save game feature in large/complex games?

Question

The save game feature seems simple but it’s mind-blowing how it can return the exact state of a game with all elements/events organised in the correct order. Can anyone explain how it works?

In: 668

Answer 1

I once made [an RTS](https://store.steampowered.com/app/888040/Metal_Fatigue/) in which I just wrote all of the program’s memory to a file. You could be mid-mission, with hundreds of units on the field and missiles in flight. It worked so well that when it loaded a saved game it thought it was saving it. I had to exempt a single value so the game could tell the difference.