Backpack Hero: How to Fix Story Mode Overworld State Not Saved Bug

There’s currently (2024.01.06) a bug in how the game manages the Story Mode Overworld state, being the town of Haversack Hill.

After a certain number of saves, new changes to Haversack Hill are lost and not saved.

Story Mode meta progress (completed missions, unlocks, items in your inventory) has its own save file and is unaffected by this issue.

Here’s a temporary fix that works for Steam on Windows 10:

1. Start Backpack Hero, but don’t load a saved game yet. This step is so the Steam cloud save sync happens before you make further changes.
2. Tab out, and in Windows File Explorer, open the Backpack Hero user data folder. For Steam on Windows 10, this folder is at:

   C:\Users\<username>\AppData\LocalLow\TheJaspel\Backpack Hero

3. Make a compressed (zipped) back-up copy of this folder! None of these steps are tricky, but making temporary backups is just a good practice.
4. Add leading zeros to the Story Mode Overworld state save files so the save file number is three digits. For example:

   bphStoryModeOverworld0_8.sav

   becomes

   bphStoryModeOverworld0_008.sav

5. Load your Story Mode game, make a small change to Haversack Hill, and then verify that a new Overworld save file has been created. If so, that’s it, you’re done, and you can delete that back-up zip file. If not, revisit the steps above and be glad you have a back-up.

(Credit to HightowerTwo and WangrieWanal on the Backpack Hero subreddit for their posts pointing me in the right direction.)

Here’s my current understanding of what is happening:

In the game data folder, these Overworld save files are named like this, where this is the 10th Overworld state save for Story Mode slot 1:

bphStoryModeOverworld0_9.sav

When the game tries to make the 11th Overworld save file, it can’t add an additional digit to increment the save number from “…_9.sav” to “…_10.sav”. Story mode meta progression is saved in its own file, but town changes are lost, as are any resources already spent (food, building materials, treasure).

Story Mode Overworld save file numbers are limited to three digits. Additional leading zeros are read but not retained when new saves are created.

I don’t know what happens when the save file number reaches “…_999.sav”. My prior attempt using two-digit save numbers triggered the original problem upon trying to pass the 100th save, “…_99.sav”. As underlying issue remains, this guide should be considered a temporary stop-gap workaround rather than a permanent fix.

At ~1000 saves, a further solution may be to rename all the existing Story Mode Overworld save files to lower numbers, such as:

bphStoryModeOverworld0_999.sav

to

bphStoryModeOverworld0_009.sav

Only the newest 10 Story Mode Overworld save files are retained. I think the game checks the save file number, not the date the file was created or modified.

I suspect this bug was accidentally added when a previous, more serious, Story Mode save bug was fixed.

As a closing note, I believe bugs are most visible to the developers when submitted on the official Discord channel. In game,

• Social media links are found under Options.
• Ctrl + Alt + B creates a zip file of user game data in a folder named “BugReports”.

Thanks to Absurdity Matrix for their excellent guide; all credit belongs to their effort. If this guide helps you, please support and rate it here. Enjoy the game.