this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2026
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How were you meant to complete games that had no save system? (feddit.uk)
submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by smeg@feddit.uk to c/retrogaming@lemmy.world
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Most of the games I played back in the day had some way of resuming your progress at a later date, whether that was an actual save system, a password system, or even a hidden warp zone. What were you supposed to do for longer games that had no way at all of resuming your progress after switching the console off? Get good enough at the start of it that you could play the game faster and eventually complete it in one go, or just leave the console on overnight and continue the next day?

(and yes, my Mega Drive is currently sitting powered on because I couldn't think of a better way to keep my progress)

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[–] natecox@programming.dev 8 points 2 days ago

Games in the 80s were largely modeled after arcade cabinets, where the game design was based around "moar quarters omnomnomnom". That kind of game design heavily influenced basically all 2d platformers and rails shooters in the arcade and at home well through the 90s.

Then someone figured out you could sub it with "moar microtransactions omnomnomnom" and we circled right back around to it again.