Perma Death Independant Of Save File?

[SarahW]

I was wondering, is there a way to make perma death of MC independent of a save file? At least for Rogue likes, it seems like a lot of those that aren't executables can be rigged by backing up the save file in a different folder.

Which doesn't seem like something I'd want, if I'm going for perma death. I was considering using passwords instead. But then that would require generated a new pass phrase every time a game is booted, for each game.rb. (I'm creating a meta game that is split across different mini-games.)

There isn't any stats I'm keeping up with, as battle mechanized as puzzle based. For the time being not programming items either. Although the limited items I can draw on the screen per variable is made moot because I can open a pre-fab shop icon in Image Viewer in Mint. So I can focus the rest of the programming on listing item switches and variables.

So I don't really need to worry about what items continue into next game file.

But I'm not sure whether to make Perma Death specific to each mini-game. Right now the save function is more like a DVD scene picker you might find on a blue-ray dvd. At least until I can find out how to make a save file.

I do have a progress report writer the player uses, which can be written over on death. But that still has the same problem, if I don't make it an executable: if they copy the progress_report over to another folder, the progress report can simply be backed up by the player.

But was considering "Permacrypting" the progress_report file. It's written over by a Straddling Cipher, with the key immediately destroyed.  I'm not certain how to do this with the cipher key the player remote views.

I could write it over, but sense the same Straddling Square cipher key is generated each play through, that kind of makes it pointless.

[Ancient]

I was wondering, is there a way to make perma death of MC independent of a save file? At least for Rogue likes, it seems like a lot of those that aren't executables can be rigged by backing up the save file in a different folder.

What is a MC? Also, it is roguelikes, not Rogue likes. The first is a game genre, the second is a number of acts of liking a certain Rogue. Permadeath is one word. What do you mean with games that are not executable? If something is not executable you cannot run it and therefore cannot play it. It can be still freely copied without any trouble though.

There are a lot of ways to store your saved game outside of copyable save file. However, the only foolproof method known so far is to have whole game play over ssh or using dgamelaunch or similar software. Otherwise you can only make cheating permadeath harder, even so hard it is not worth defeating but never unbreakable.

First, decide if you want to spend your time deterring cheating. If yes, how much time. For many developers this answer is usually "zero seconds". The time spent implementing cheating defenses is not spent improving your game. POWDER even goes a bit into supporting save scumming while explicitly warning player that the action taken is cheating. I recommend against spending time enforcing permadeath.

[Tzan]

My guess is MC == main character.

[AgingMinotaur]

That's what I thought.

Regarding the topic: I use Pickle (the Python module) to make save files myself, because it's easy. It produces binary files, for better or worse. If I wanted to prevent save scumming, I'd look for a quick'n'easy solution, like trying to use the md5sum values of save files to prevent the same game state from being loaded more than once. I'm hardly an expert on the matter, so that in particular is probably not a brilliant idea. But a well-formed web search should probably yield some standard solutions to the problem.

Personally, I don't think it's worth putting a lot of work into preventing save scumming on a single player game like your typical RL, but all according to overall taste and design, of course As a player, I've enjoyed my moderate share of save scumming, especially to "break through" the middle game in larger games like ADOM and Caves of Qud. In my own games, I allow save scumming as an explicit menu option, but marking such characters as playing in "wizard mode", meaning they won't show up in high score lists, for instance (which has the added benefit of not spamming your high score with chars you're using to test the end game).

As always,
Minotauros

[SarahW]

That's what I thought.

Regarding the topic: I use Pickle (the Python module) to make save files myself, because it's easy. It produces binary files, for better or worse. If I wanted to prevent save scumming, I'd look for a quick'n'easy solution, like trying to use the md5sum values of save files to prevent the same game state from being loaded more than once. I'm hardly an expert on the matter, so that in particular is probably not a brilliant idea. But a well-formed web search should probably yield some standard solutions to the problem.

Personally, I don't think it's worth putting a lot of work into preventing save scumming on a single player game like your typical RL, but all according to overall taste and design, of course As a player, I've enjoyed my moderate share of save scumming, especially to "break through" the middle game in larger games like ADOM and Caves of Qud. In my own games, I allow save scumming as an explicit menu option, but marking such characters as playing in "wizard mode", meaning they won't show up in high score lists, for instance (which has the added benefit of not spamming your high score with chars you're using to test the end game).

As always,
Minotauros

Save scumming huh? That's the most amazing name ever for that.