saving game data

[Karl]

I am having trouble understanding what to do to have your progress save. For example: In my game, when you beat a level, a checkmark will appear on the map screen. How do I make it so that after exiting out of the game, you can still continue your progress?

Can you give me a set of things to do in order to achieve this?

[DavidN]

There are several ways to do this, all involving storing an external file that you can write to and read from to save and restore data.

One of the simplest is the INI Object - there should be examples of how to use it on the CD. It lets you store data in named groups and items. On completion of a level, you would "Set GroupItemValue ("Completed", "Level 1") to "1"" or something similar, and check whether that value had been set in the file when you started the map screen again.

Being plaintext, INI files are open to people modifying them - a favourite of mine at the moment is the Named Variable Object, which allows you to switch between using plain INIs and securer encrypted array files for saves.