Screensaver Deleted Players' Saves. We Recall One of History's Most Absurd Bugs
Today's loss of saves from outside the cloud doesn't seem so bad. However, in the case of this title, players had it a little worse.
Nowadays, issues with saving games shouldn't be as widespread, especially considering that we live in an era of cloud storage collecting all data in case of any unpleasant surprises. Meanwhile, it turns out that even the biggest giants (such as Baldur's Gate 3 ) face the problem of disappearing saves.
Most of these bugs are solved by the aforementioned cloud, however, not all games are so lucky or capable. This error will be remembered as one of the dumbest.
Screensafe
PCGamingWiki is a free encyclopedia serving as a compendium of all kinds of advice on how to deal with bugs in video games. Besides assisting those in need, the website also provides a comprehensive list of optimization data, which can often be surprising. One of the players noticed a bug that deleted saves via... the screensaver.
Save files will delete themselves if the game is left running and your computer goes into screen saver mode. To avoid this, remember to quit the game before leaving it unattended or disable screen saver mode.
-- PCGamingWiki
A game that deals with an unusual problem is The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, released in 2009. Leaving it on until the screen went off resulted in the loss of save files, which, contrary to appearances, could happen to quite a few people - even those who took a short break for lunch. The bug hasn't been fixed yet.
Problems with pixel reforestation
Experiencing a loss of progress because of a short break can be frustrating, but it's not the only odd bug that players have observed. The bug that removes the visibility of trees reaches a similar level of absurdity, although in this case the method of fixing it is even more surprising.
The problem mentioned by one of the users concerns the title, which is Dogfight 1942. Players of the combat flight simulator reported non-existent trees, and the solution was to reset the computer's date to 2012, the year the game was released.
It was such a common bug that the developers themselves commented on it via Steam. While developing the trees, the devs used an external plugin called SpeedTree, which, due to a human error, declines to collaborate if the system date goes beyond the year of release.
The problem would be easy to solve if any of the developers were still working for CI Games. However, as no one stayed in the company, the simulator will always require adjusting dates to see the trees.
So if you ever get annoyed with disappearing save files, which only the cloud will save, or non-working textures, think that some players really have it worse.
