This is something that I've been meaning to write for a long time, but never got around to.
Now, if anyone thinks that I'm filthy cheater and that what I'm describing destroys all the enjoyment from the game, you are as entitled to your opinion as any guy, I'm just not interested in knowing it or discussing it. I'm mostly writing it for those, who can find this useful.
Now, it turns out that it many games that do not allow restoring old saves it still can be done relatively painlessly. I'm using this for FTL, and I'm also using this for other games that DO allow restoring saves (such as Legends of Grimrock) to share saves between several computers.
I'm using
Dropbox for it and
an addon application.
The idea is really simple. You find the folder where the saves are stored by the game. If it is not obvious, where they are, I use
Process Monitor to find out.
Then I link the saves folder to my Dropbox using the addin. (Just right click on the folder in the Windows Explorer and choose "Sync with Dropbox".
Now, whenever game saves files they get automatically synced with Dropbox. And since Dropbox keeps history of changes, it is possible to see all the previous saves on the Dropbox web site, when you are logged it. Choose "Previous versions" or "Show deleted" depending on how the game saves work. For FTL, where all saves go to the same file "Previous versions" works nicely. Now you can chose to roll back to any historic save and Dropbox will restore it for you.
This way you can return to an earlier point in the game even if this was not envisioned by the game designers, and I don't talk FTL only, most games that have local saves can use this technique. You do not need to frustrate over a small mistake you've just made and inability to re-try.
FTL saves when you choose "Save+Quit" only. So you need to choose this option when you want to make a save.
For Legends of Grimlock, I play it on two computers, and since steam sync of saves is not supported, this is how I make sure that the game saves are synced over my two PCs. Once set up it's completely transparent and a pure joy.
Thought that someone can find this little trick useful.
