AGS: Save games are always ordered by saveslot instead of last save date

[ZsKokos]

ScummVM version: 2.8.0
Game language: English
Game version: 1.2.9 (Steam)

Reproduction steps: Start a new game, create three savegames, save over the second savegame, then open loadgame screen.

Expected result: save games are listed in order of latest save date
Observed result: save games are listed in order of first save date (that is, creation date)

Additional note: Quest for Glory games do not exhibit this issue.

[ZsKokos]

ScummVM behavior is not Sierra-like, which makes it difficult for the player to track which save games include the latest in-game progress. (Although Heroine's Quest is a non-Sierra game, it employs the same logic)

ScummVM works as intended with Sierra engines (notably Quest for Glory series).

Native Steam version:

Steam version played via ScummVM:

[tag2015]

Thanks for the report.
This is not strictly related to Heroine's Quest, it's a shortcoming of the AGS implementation in ScummVM.
When using the in-game interface the saves are generally sorted following the saveslot number (in reverse), to accomodate the fact that a user can also save using the Global Main Menu (opened using CTRL-F5) which is always sorted by saveslot.
The saves are sorted in reverse so that newly generated saves appear at the top, of course, this does not happen if you overwrite an existing slot, like you noticed.

The behavior could be changed, but should be carefully planned as this could make matters worse in other games.

[ZsKokos]

Thanks for the answer.
For now, could we implement a hack only for Heroine's Quest, please? Later the evolution of AGS implementation eventually will make it unnecessary.

[tag2015]

While working on #12335 i also had a look at this but unfortunately it's not a simple change (since we can't check the file modification date), and doing so for just one game is not really viable.

Sorry! maybe in the future

[ZsKokos]

since we can't check the file modification date

I believe the original game neither checks the file metadata, but stores this information in "hqrecord.dat" found in the same directory as the save files.

[ZsKokos]

since we can't check the file modification date

I need to correct my latest statement, you're indeed right. The original game does perform sorting based on file modification date. I've just tested this by changing the file metadata.

[ZsKokos]

Replying to tag2015:

Sorry! maybe in the future

No worries, I still thank you for your amazing work on ScummVM.

[Crystal-Shard]

Replying to ZsKokos:

I believe the original game neither checks the file metadata, but stores this information in "hqrecord.dat" found in the same directory as the save files.

No, this file has another purpose. The saved game ordering is part of the AGS engine (or its ScummVM implementation); the hqrecord.dat file is exclusive to Heroine's Quest and unrelated to this issue.