Saves: slots, export and import

Français · Type: how-to + explanation · Audience: player · Context: player's browser · Status: ready · Applies from: 4.1.15

The player (DOM painter) · contract: stable · verified by CI (support matrix of 4.4.0, 2026-10-23): Chromium on the desktop, mouse and keyboard; Chromium and WebKit at a phone's size, touch and keyboard (emulated); axe-core on every screen (not a WCAG claim) · automated checks: jobs e2e; CI plan e2e; 2 test files · people's passes: phone-both-renderers not run (#83), code-wheel-human not run (#78), blind-playtesters not run (#76) · known limits: saves-device-only

How a quest'n'click game keeps your progress, how to save in a slot, how to move a save to another device, and what a save holds. The labels are the engine's defaults; a game may word them otherwise.

What you get

Your game resumes where you left it, on the same device, with Continue on the title screen. With save slots you also keep several points of the story, and you can carry a save to another device as a file.

Context and versions

The player of any quest'n'click game in a browser. True from 4.1.15 (the save envelope of schema 4, which records the Remix world a game was played in); slots live in IndexedDB since 3.1. Save slots exist only in a game whose author turned them on (saves.slots); the sample game has three.

Prerequisites

A browser that keeps the site's storage. In a private window, or a browser profile that blocks IndexedDB, the game still saves, in local storage instead, and says so once.

Where to do it

In the game, from the pause menu (the pause button in the tools, or Escape).

The autosave

The game saves by itself each time an action ends (the engine back to idle), when you change rooms, and when a script moves on. Each write is read back and checked. The pause menu's Autosave row shows ✓, or ⚠ when the last write failed; a failed write also shows "Save failed" with the browser's reason. Continue on the title screen resumes the autosave. Restart erases it first, after a confirmation; if the browser refuses to erase it, you keep your game.

Steps

Save in a slot: pause menu › Save › a slot. Each slot shows the room and the date of its save, or "empty". Saving over a used slot asks "Overwrite this save?" first.

Load a slot: pause menu › Load › a slot. An empty slot cannot be chosen.

Export a save to a file: pause menu › Save › Export file. Your browser downloads <game>-save.json, the current game.

Import it on another device: there, open the same game, pause menu › Load › Import file, and pick the JSON file. The save is written into the first free slot (if there is one), then loaded.

Moving a save between devices

Saves never leave the device by themselves: there is no account and no cloud save. Export and Import are the way to move one (a phone to a computer, an old browser to a new one). The file holds your game for that one game: importing it into another game is refused ("save belongs to game …").

The same Save menu has two more files, for bug reports rather than saving:

Share session (a playtest): the inputs since the game started, with ids only and the places you tapped near but missed. It opens your device's share sheet when it can, else downloads <game>-<date>.session.json.
Export session: the inputs since the game started or a save was loaded, with the game's journal; the author's tools replay it exactly.

What a save holds, and what it does not

A save is your game's state: the room, where each character stands, the bag, what you did and learned (flags, counters, conversations seen), where scripts stand, the camera, the music's position, and for a Remix game the world you play in. It does not hold your settings (text speed, volumes, language: they stay in the browser, apart) or your speedrun records.

A save written by any 3.x or 4.x release of the engine loads in every later 4.x: when the author changes the game in a way an old save cannot follow, the game carries the save over itself. When a newer version of a game no longer has something your save names (an item, a place), the save still loads, without it, and the game says "Save adjusted for this version" with what it left out. See Stability and support.

Guarantee · play-save-refused-untouched · referenced · executed on aff6caab7514 · scope self-checked by the author (AI), not reviewed A save of another game, a corrupt one, or one whose current room no longer exists is refused, and the game you are playing is left as it was.

Limit · saves-device-only Saves live in this browser on this device. Clearing the site's data, or Safari clearing a site unopened for seven days, erases them: export the ones you care about.

Expected result, and how to check it

After Save, the slot shows the room and the time, and a short message "Slot 1 ✓".
After Import file, the game loads the imported state and the first free slot holds it.
The pause menu's Autosave row shows ✓.

Common errors

Message	Cause	Fix
"Save failed"	The browser refused the write (storage full, private window limits)	Free some space; keep the game open and try again; export the save
"save belongs to game "x", not "y""	The file is another game's save	Import it into the game it came from
"save version 5 cannot be migrated to 4"	The save is newer than this copy of the game	Update the game (reload it online, accept the update), then import again
"this save was played in another world …"	A Remix save, made in another world than the one open	Open that world (the game offers to), or keep your current game
"Your saved game lives in another world"	A link opened a Remix world while your autosave is in another	Choose Continue the saved game, or start the link's world (it replaces the autosave)

The full list of cases: Player troubleshooting.

Files or data changed

In the browser: the IndexedDB database web-scumm-saves (its name keeps the project's former name, as a format identifier), or, without IndexedDB, local storage keys <game>.save and <game>.slot.<n>. Export writes a file in your downloads folder.

Recovery or going back

A slot overwritten cannot be brought back. Keep an exported file of a save you want to return to. A save from an older local-storage version of a game (before 3.1) is copied into IndexedDB once, and the old copy is removed only after the new one is verified.

For authors: slots and migrations

Slots are a setting of the game (game.ts), with the menu's texts in ui:

saves: { slots: 3 },   // the pause menu gets Save / Load with three slots, plus export and import as a JSON file
ui: { …, save: 'Save', load: 'Load', slot: 'Slot {n}', emptySlot: 'empty', exportSave: 'Export to a file', importSave: 'Import a file', confirmOverwrite: 'Overwrite this slot?' },

Manual slots are stored like the autosave: in IndexedDB, as envelopes, read back after each write; an imported file also fills the first free slot. When the content changes incompatibly, bump saveVersion and carry the state over as data, one step per version:

saveVersion: 3,
migrations: [
  { from: 1, renameFlag: { found: 'key_found' }, renameItem: { cle: 'key' } },
  { from: 2, renameRoom: { lobby: 'hall' }, renameProp: { 'hall.lamp': 'hall.lantern' }, dropFlag: ['tmp'] },
],

The chain must reach saveVersion; a save with no path to it cannot be loaded (Continue then starts a new game). Stale optional references are pruned with a visible warning; structural corruption, a foreign game, a missing current room or an unknown active player is rejected without changing the current session. The whole subject, with the Migration type: State and saves.

References

Stability and support: which saves load in which versions.
Privacy: what stays on the device.
The code: src/engine/core/save.ts, src/engine/dom/save-store.ts, src/engine/dom/menus.ts.

Edit the source of this page · Report an error