At what point would you implement a save system?

[civic current]

My game in development already has a main room with several objects that can be destroyed, containers that contain ds_lists for their slots, objects that can be placed, loot on the ground, a progress-handler with nested maps and so on.
This whole time I've been pushing off implementing a save system because "Who knows what I might add later and what is going to change."
But the further I get the more often I wonder whether I should just implement one already.

Just for the sake of collecting opinions - when developing for a game - at what point do you usually implement a save system?

[balmy moss]

generally i actually write the code around when the player starts moving between different rooms, since i usually lean on an internal save state to deal with room persistence, but i'll be thinking about it from pretty much the beginning

[blissful goblet]

What dragonite said.

Earlier the better. It's a hassle to add saving retroactively and often involves rewriting code if you didn't plan for it.

Though, when I add a new feature, sticking it in the save file is the last step for me, for the reason you described. Better if you can plan for the save file though.

[civic current]

Yea okay - I see that now.
Reading this convinced me to begin implementing a basic save system and now I see that there are several edge cases where I need to make sure whether or not I need variable xyz to be copied or not.

[blissful goblet]

Yuuup

Hah, that is quite a good bug.

Also your game looks really cute. 👍

[civic current]

Haha, yea I also giggled at that bug.

And thanks!
Tho I can't fully take credit for the visuals - only the character is my work, the wonderfully looking environment is made by the artist 'RunningBlood'. I'm in awe about their work. :D

[blissful goblet]

👍 Ah, very nice.

(Shoutout artists everywhere, they are so awesome).