Experimenting with the idea of running save files on the title screen for very smooth game-loading ...

April 09, 2026 - 19:23 UTC

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That's so good!
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this is a great idea! the environments look really lovely as well
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What game is this? Looks fantastic.
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Thanks! it's a game my brother @liamberry.ca and I are working on called City of None! cityofnone.com/
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It has the magic word on it, I like it.
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If you’re actually loading from the file when you change menu selection then console cert will dislike the frequent file access… unless you always load em all on boot…? But then that could be quite slow on console.. stuff like that always stops me from getting creative with save files 😆
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nah the actual save files are tiny so it loads them only once as a single action on startup while assets are loading! (they're each like < 1kb)
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Realistically modern consoles have a much higher chance (100%) to have an NVMe SSD than consumer PCs, on which many people install their games to a secondary HDD.
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That's actually a really slick way to do saves, and I kind of wish more people would do that. It's probably a lot harder with more intensive games, but even if they could load the background of the area you were in, it would be such a cool feature.
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yeah, I get away with a lot because it's pixel art, honestly. Very little loading and resources required.
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Looks very good
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oh that's very beautiful!
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Big fan of that myself!
The player is basically already halfway inside the game. This file selection menu and the game's save rooms share the same music as well.
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oh awesome, this looks great!
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That’s super slick
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oh, _very_ cool. I can imagine a couple stumbling blocks but it seems to be going OK already
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yeah this has many great ways to explode terribly lol
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that's pretty neat honestly
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this is cute! I love little presentation things like this
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Wow, this is beautiful
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oh that's so cool
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So lovely and satisfying!
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oh this absolutely rocks
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I can see Skyward Sword runners finding some "magic" there... 👀
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goddd this game looks so gooood!!
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Extremely cool idea! Visually that creates a really neat vibe.
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You’ve got me wanting to do this in other games now. So cool
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Was just wondering what you were working on lately, Noel! Happy to see City of None is still alive.
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Thanks Sandy! yeah it's still sloooowly coming together :) Hoping it wrap it up this year, but we'll see!

Excited for Mina, the demo was super fun!
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fuck dude
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Oooh very cool
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pretty cool stuff
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Which reminds me that I'll have to figure out how to handle save files in my own game later... tho I still need to learn how to implement a score and highscore first...
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Reminds me of how they handled loading in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Just load the level with a hero shot of Indy and pressing continue allows you to play from there.

Cool stuff!
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that's really smart (and clean lookin!)
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Very slick!
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Oh thats super cool
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Oh, that is SMOOTH AS FUCK.

If you can get away with doing that, I think it's worth the effort. :o
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This is really neat :D
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This is a really cool idea
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Holy shit this is lit. Experiment success?
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bruv wheres my Steam link I need this yesterday
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That's amazing and beautiful!
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Indiana Jones and the Great Circle does something like this too.
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Gorgeous!
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Oh my god that's glorious
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oh my god
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ah i do this for the main save file (e.g. the title screen is the exact same screen as the first screen you'll load into) in Derelict Star but this is a much slicker implementation to account for switching files too. my file select is fullscreen so it doesn't work like this. very cool!
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I like the idea — it feels intuitive, almost like the game is *waiting* for you to come back. But what’s the trade-off? I can imagine the title screen getting cluttered if you’ve got a lot of saves. Or does it make the game feel more personal, like it *knows* who you are?
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Truly amazing UX idea <3
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The Dead Space remake did something like this. I spent ages trying to figure out how to skip the logos, only to learn they were actually hiding the loading screen for your last used save file as the menu background, and it smoothly transitions right into gameplay.
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It looks so *good*...
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Genuinely love this
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That is so fucking slick
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Cool! Is there a technical reason the waterfall does not appear on the title screen? Shader compilation?

Also, hooray for developing on Linux! 😃
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It was a bug I didn't notice until after posting, haha. Various things like water, slime, etc, all use their own system to render, and I was only registering "core" systems on the title screen and didn't realize that would affect waterfalls lol
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That's a really neat idea. I've seen games that store a screenshot with the savegame and show you that, but to just load the game and show it is very cute.
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Yeah, we actually started with that... but then we wanted to be able to have animated backgrounds and decided to run custom game rooms.... then after that I was like, why not just load the actual rooms.... haha
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this is very cool and adds a lot to the cinematic feel of the thing
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Very slick
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Such a good idea. It almost breaks the idea of loading a game, which we've always kind of been taught is a whole process you have to wait for.
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freakin sweet
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Lindo, parabéns!
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Nice.
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oh this rules
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A real "why didn't I think of that?" moment.
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Brilliant!
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Man that looks so cool!
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this is lovely. I imagine it would break so easily though unless you built the game to handle it from the start 😅
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having limited places to save at, and not having enemies there, would help a lot though
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Dang, that looks slick.
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this rules, looks slick as hell 💜💜

it might look even cooler with a superquick wipe-transition between them, especially if u can render two game instances in parallel
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I agree! I'll probably mess with that later.
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No one man can have all that power Noel!
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One less loading screen in the world 👍 Go further! Launch straight into offering to load the most recent save, when there is one. With the "live preview" that'd be really frictionless continuity.
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Extreme vibe
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That is such a slick looking method, I absolutely love it. Especially with your visual aesthetic!
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Omg this is super cool!!
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it definetly is
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What is this sorcery
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Oh that's so seamless! Imagine it makes sitting in the UI feel a little risky too. Very cool!
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That looks absolutely beautiful
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Oh this is cool as hell
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hot
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Ok this is so sick
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