Save And Continue No Longer Feels Painful

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The save-and-continue work has had a very welcome second phase: it is now fast enough to feel reasonable on the low-powered handheld target rather than like an awkward proof of concept. That matters more than it probably would on a desktop build, because a feature designed around short play sessions immediately loses its charm if stopping to save feels like a long interruption.

I am deliberately not going into all the engineering detail here, but the broad story is simple enough. The problem was not really the size of the save file on its own, it was the amount of unnecessary work wrapped around it. Tidying up that hot path made a much bigger difference than trying to shave a few bytes off the file itself. The end result is that save and load now feel brisk enough that the whole idea of dipping in, suspending a run, and coming back later makes sense on device.

Making It Easier To Dip Back In

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

One thing that keeps coming back into focus is that the handheld version really wants a proper save-and-continue feature. Not because save systems are glamorous, and not because I am trying to turn this into some giant modern progression layer, but because the whole point of having WizBall on a small device is that I can pick it up for five or ten minutes and make some progress. Right now the shape of the game still assumes a longer, more deliberate sitting. The hardware is asking for something more interruptible.

Save-Game on Wizball Remake

Save And Continue No Longer Feels Painful

Making It Easier To Dip Back In