Hi folks.
Concise version: Is loading and saving games using serialization an effective solution on Android?
Full version:
I have spent the last few years of my hobby time writing an RPG game in Java. I now want to port it to Android, and have been reading up on Android development.
My lazy decision when writing the PC game was to implement save games using object serialization. All of a game’s data is under the object “Game”, and is serializable, so saving and loading games was easy. The risk is that a Java update will change the standard objects to the point that I cannot retrieve a saved game, and the player will have to start over. Given the nature of the game (it’s more rogue-like than anything else), this was not a problem.
Moving over to Android, I hope to preserve this approach rather than (finally) have to write toString and fromString methods, or figure out how to put all the data into SQLite. I may use the DB later, but to get started, I am trying to avoid taking on more work - redoing the UI is enough.
So, my question is, in your collective experience, is loading and saving games using serialization an effective solution on Android?
thanks,
Andrew