This message appeared before and I followed it previously.
I thought the new version would be free from this limitation.
Sorry, I wish there were a way.
As I've struggled with this quite a bit, let me technically explain as far as i can understand it to make clear its not just lazyness on the part of the dev.
- Renpy/Python is interpreted and not compiled code
- The built-in save function essentially dumps all the data / variables and their content you might have created after the "start" command in the save game
- This save game can be triggered anywhere in the code flow (which is quite comfortable, to be clear)
- So when the dev expands the game and introduces, or worse, modifies existing variables & their content, which might be part of a saved game state, he has the problem to reconcile the old and the new data structures and worse, data interpretation (if dev made such changes on top)
- As the dev doesn't know where you have saved, he needs to intercept all possible points this new data might be accessed for the first time
- One way around would be to define "save points" and deactivate renpy's (generally comfortable) save mechanism. When entering or exiting this "save point" location an attempt could be made to reconcile the data
And now come the point that breaks the neck of any attempt I can think of to do the above:
- As described above, you can save essentially anywhere in the game together with all the data. Some part of the saved data is a kind of return stack (as I understand it), which can properly resume the code execution and climb up from any submodule/subroutine calls you might have made (e.g. you save deep inide a dungeon minigame...)
- To accomplish that, at the time a distribution is created renpy adds numbered "FROM" clauses to every single subroutine call so it knows how to climb up the return ladder, so to speak, on resume
- This means the dev would not only have to reconcile the data, but to drag through the entire development / version history the "FROM xxx" number for every single subroutine call and make sure new functions use new numbers and everything stays consistent
- This is such a mindboggling waste of time that you better don't try. If you forget only one label, you will have weird resume errors, where savegames suddenly jump all over the place on return from whatever subroutine they were saved because the "FROM" numbering got shifted
So in short: It might theoretically possible. But so is manned space flight. It's just a colossal waste of effort
How it could work:
You complete an entire game engine, knowing exactly which features you will need in the course of the game content releases.
Then you release the game content as simple tie-in packages. Any good idea or extension you might have is of course not possible.
So thats my two cents on the topic. Its derived from observation and not Renpy code deepdive so some tech points might not be 100% accurate. If anyone knows more feel free to expand.
