Computer game with game saving including history data to allow for play reacquaintance upon restart of game

Abstract

In a computer game, game state is saved when indicated and a history of previous game play is also recorded. Upon resumption, the history of previous game play is presented to the user and the game does not accept user input to alter the replaying game sequence. Then, once the replay is at an end, the game resumes with user control and with the saved game state. In this manner, the user can be refamiliarized with the particular instance of the game that was saved before having to take control of the game. The games might be fantasy games, sports games, adventure games, or other types of games. In a specific embodiment, as the game is played, the events of the game are stored in a circular buffer of some determined time period. The determined time period might be user settable or set by the game designer based on memory available and the type of game. Thus, for example, a chess game might have a history comprising the last seven moves, while a soccer game might have a history comprising a buffer of the last five seconds of game play. In each case, the circular buffer would be such that at any time a game save is triggered the circular buffer contains the most recent history of the game. In the example of the soccer game, the history data in the buffer would be continually overwritten as that data comes to represent events that happened more than five seconds before the current time.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.