A Wild Rollercoaster Ride

Raven here.  There have been a lot of ups and downs for me this past few days, I am just glad to report it ended on an up!  I have been looking for a way to be able to save a game from UDK, as that doesn't seem to be a feature built into the engine.  But for an RPG this option is essential!  I looked around for a while, I posted questions on a couple of the forums... I found a method of saving small cookie files using Flash.  So I figured that would work!

EPIC FAIL

Even though values were being saved and loaded fine when I ran the program through Flash, UDK refused to acknowledge this.  It wouldn't give the wrong data, it just refused to give any data like an obstinate child refusing to clean their room!  Frustrating.  So I went back online and found answers to my questions.  One of them directed me to a pre-made .dll tool that has all the save and load commands I would need, called the UltimateSaveSystem.  YAY!  I downloaded it and put the files where they belong, booted it up...

EPIC FAIL

When I tried to load it, UDK crashed entirely.  So after posting what happened on the UltimateSaveSystem forum, I continued looking... and looking... and looking... nothing, nothing, nothing.  Crap!  No other methods to save through Flash, no other methods to save through UDK...  I got a response on the UltimateSaveSystem forum asking what the startup log from UDK said after a crash.  Duh! *Facepalm* I hadn't thought to look.  To make a long story not quite as long, this led me to a page that told me how to properly load the new UltimateSaveSystem package into UDK.  I'd done it wrong.  So I did that, set up a test level, and ran it from the UDK editor...

EPIC FAIL

NOOOOO!!!  At this point I'm about to throw the computer against the wall and do my game creation using pen and paper, create the latest version of Dungeons & Dragons.  Then something occurred to me.  There had been one other time when a command wouldn't run from the editor, I had to choose the test method where it loads the entire game in a separate window and runs it independently of the editor.  I think it has something to do with accessing outside files, such as save files.  So I loaded my test level back up and clicked to run the game itself...

EPIC... SUCCESS!

Now that I had gotten through all the little details of how it needs to work, I discovered that the UltimateSaveSystem is totally awesome!  The creator of this must be a UDK / C++ / UnrealScript genius!  If any of you following this blog is looking at creating games using UDK, check out this save system at:
Ultimate Save System
So now I am so happy!  And relieved!  And I'm going to bed to dream happy dreams of our completed game.  Until later!