Release a game in several episodes

RedCityNoise

Hi,
I'm looking to release my game in an episodic format. And I have 2 questions related to the "save" part.
--If the player downloads the first episode, and he finish the game by saving. Is the save will work automatically when he will download episode 2? Or it will be incompatible because his episode 1 save hasn't variables or scenes / objects from episode 2 in memory?

--Is it possible to separate slot 0 (auto-save) of the main grid list? Maybe with unity UI?

Thank you in advance.

ChrisIceBox

Yes, you could use Unity UI to place your slot 0 wherever you want.

As for transferring saves between episodes - yes, that would be possible.  Custom coding, sure, but there wouldn't be a problem with incompatibility.

The caveat would be that you'd only be able to transfer Global Variable data.  If the two episodes shared the same Variables Manager, this'd be quite simple.  You could even have a "Has completed Ep 1" boolean that's set to true once the player's finished episode 1.

Writing an import script has been on my todo list for a while, though it may not be integrated into the menu system - likely you'll have to run a script function.  We'll see.

RedCityNoise

Thank you Chris for your answer. That's what I was thinking, to keep the same variable manager and create an "Ep1a completed" boolean, etc.
I was especially scared because our choices in episode 1 making changes in episode 2, etc.
I'll test it all as soon as possible and I will bring you my feedback .

ps: Import script, I hadn't thought of that, but yes, it might be useful!

ChrisIceBox

I've actually gone ahead and added this myself: it'll be a new option in the SaveList menu element.  You'll be able to import the global vars of another save, and optionally only list those in which a set bool is "true".  A couple of caveats:

- Only works for desktops (no webplay / mobile)
- The publisher name must be the same

RedCityNoise

Wow, perfect, thank you so much Chris, really really Really !!