Playing KQVI (Sierra, ScummVM) with multiple, frequent autosaves

[Zetetic]

I've been convinced to play King's Quest VI, which is one of those Sierra games that will GAME OVER you fairly easy and outside of the common contract of fairness.

I want to have the option of rewinding the last minute, or last 5 minutes, or last 50 minutes of play. Luxury save-scumming to the minimal standards you'd expect in the year 2021.

What's the best way to achieve this?

ScummVM's autosave feature plus something copying files in the background?

Is there a specialist virtual machine setup that supports RAM etc. history? (I've briefly searched and couldn't find anything, which I was a bit surprised by. But I'm probably not searching for the right things.)

[madhair60]

Just play it normally and properly and make multiple saves, it takes seconds. If you can't be arsed just watch a YouTube of it.

[Zetetic]

Just play it normally and properly and make multiple saves, it takes seconds.

Why?

Seems better to get the computer to do that for me and I'm pretty sure I can't play it "normally" any more (since I simply don't have the hardware required). I'm not sure that ScummVM's save/load menu is an integral part of the experience.

[St_Eddie]

I'm pretty sure I can't play it "normally" any more (since I simply don't have the hardware required). I'm not sure that ScummVM's save/load menu is an integral part of the experience.

King's Quest VI has always contained the ability to make multiple saves and saving your game when playing through Sierra adventure games has always been a requirement for first time players, due to the numerous dead ends and deaths.  They're PC games, not console games (where saving and loading was a rarity at the time, due to a lack of hard drive).  Saving and loading is absolutely integral to the original experience of playing a Sierra adventure game.  The mantra for Sierra was "save early, save often".

All that ScummVM does is bypass the original in-game saving and loading feature to make use of its own in-built universal saving and loading screen.  You can still use the original game's system by going to 'Edit Game' within the ScummVM front end and selecting 'Use original save/load screens' under the 'Engine' tab.

[Zetetic]

The mantra for Sierra was "save early, save often".

Well, quite.

That's why I'm trying to get the computer to do it for me, since it's not 1992[nb]It's 2021.[/nb] and neither processing power or storage are a consideration any more.

How do I do this?

[madhair60]

You don't deserve King's Quest VI, sorry. You're not allowed to play it.

[Zetetic]

It's looking like PowerShell and IO.FileSystemWatcher is the answer.

I guess I'll be the first person to play KQVI, as I like to call it, the way it should be played.

[Zetetic]

Had a very supportive message from Roberta Williams, which is nice.