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ZenGin Save Games

Quick Infos

Type: Asset Format
Format Name: SaveGame
File Extension: Folder
Class Name: —
Encoding: Various

ZenGin save-games are essentially just folders containing a set of files holding various data relevant to the world and script state.

  • LOG.SAV — Contains the hero's attributes (such as XP and health) over time
  • SAVEHDR.SAV — Contains the path of the world file the hero was in when creating the save
  • SAVEINFO.SAV — Contains general metadata about the save-game such as its name and when it was created
  • SAVEDAT.SAV — Contains the script and player state among other miscellaneous values
  • THUMB.SAV — A texture file containing a thumbnail for the save.

The rest of the files in the save will be the world state of each level the player has been in. For example in Gothic 1, every save-game will have a WORLD.SAV containing the VOb-tree and Waynet of the main game world in the state it was in when creating the save.

LOG.SAV

The log file contains the hero's attributes over time. It takes the form of a tab-separated values file (TSV) where each row represents the hero's attribute state at the point of time the save was created. The first line acts as a column header descriptor. Here's an example file taken from a Gothic II save (though the columns are the same for both games):

LOG.SAV
minutes day hour    minute  level   experience  learnpoints guild   strength    dexterity   max.hitpoints   max.mana    1handed 2handed bow crossbow    circle  picklock    pickpocket  sneak   acrobatic   
0   0   8   0   0   0   0   Gildenlos   10  10  40  10  0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   
6   0   8   6   0   0   0   Gildenlos   10  10  40  10  0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   
60  0   9   0   0   200 0   Gildenlos   10  10  40  10  0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0

SAVEHDR.SAV

This file contains only one line with the path of the world file to be loaded initially when playing the save. It refers to the world file as it is found in the worlds.vdf file. In Gothic I, for example, the file might contain

SAVEHDR.SAV
WORLD.ZEN

if the save was made while the hero was in the main game world. If the hero was in another world at the time, this file would contain the path of that world instead.

SAVEINFO.SAV

Contains basic metadata information about the save-game. It is presented in ZenGin Archive format and was originally only used to generate the save-game list preview when browsing saved games. It contains a single oCSavegameInfo object.

SAVEDAT.SAV

Contains most of the script and world state information of the save-game. It uses the ZenGin Archive format and structured as follows:

day

The number of in-game days played in the save-game.

Info

This value is the true time to be set when loading the save. The value stored in SAVEINFO.SAV is discarded and only used in the save-game preview.

hour

The hour of the in-game day when the save-game was created (values from 0 to 24).

Info

This value is the true time to be set when loading the save. The value stored in SAVEINFO.SAV is discarded and only used in the save-game preview.

min

The minute of the in-game hour when the save-game was created (values from 0 to 59).

Info

This value is the true time to be set when loading the save. The value stored in SAVEINFO.SAV is discarded and only used in the save-game preview.

numSymbols

The number of script symbol values that are stored in the archive.

symName0

The name of the symbol the next value is stored for. Appears for every stored symbol value and is suffixed with the index in the saved symbol list.

symValue0

The single value saved for the symbol.

Warning

Only available in Gothic I-saves. Gothic II allows for storing multiple values per symbol; see symName0cnt.

symName0cnt

The number of values stored for the symbol. Appears for every stored symbol value.

Warning

Only available in Gothic II-saves.

symValue0_0

The value of the symbol at the index given by the suffix. Stored sequentially.

Warning

Only available in Gothic II-saves.

guildTable

The attitude values for each in-game guild towards each other. Stored as a 42x42 matrix in the raw format.

  1. "Inline" means, that these objects are not wrapped in an archive object. Rather, their contents are simply all written to the parent object directly without encapsulation. ↩↩↩↩