save everywhere
if I "manually" save at a given spot, that's a check point.
yes

Is this GOG games only?

If not then are you also going to count if official game patches added that feature?

Such as Tomb Raider III & Daikatana they both originally used save crystals, but official patches removed them and allowed you to save anywhere. (If you don't patch them from the original retail then they use the crystals still.)

yes, gog only now
if the patch is included in the gog verison, it goes in the list of games that allow manual save
if it has to be installed or modded it goes on the list of games that don't, with a note, possibly linking to the patch or mod
the list does not care for original retail versions, only the gog version matters
for example, the Castelvania/Contra games by Konami are included as they have manual saves.

I saw you mention google docs not working (good, we should distance ourselves from evil monopoly google), so here's an alternative: https://cryptpad.fr/

I'd be interested in knowing where the saves are located, since having them in the game folder fell out of practice a while ago. It would also be good to know what kind of saves a game has.
Deletes save: roguelike
one save slot or more
checkpoints
etc.

Also Far Cry - manual saving has to be done through the console. So, it's in the grey area of being available without modding, but not straight out of the box.

For the games on my list, the following have save anywhere:
* Ultima 5 and onward (4 only allows overworld saves)
* Wizardry 4 and 6-8 (4 not on GOG, 4 forces you back to the title screen and enemies respawn on reload)
* Infinity Engine games (except that the game might not let you save if it thinks enemies are nearby; in BG2 I had to rewatch the cutscene between chapters 3 and 4 because of this)
* Both Pathfinder games
* Bard's Tale remastered trilogy (also original 3 and some versions of 2)
* Elminage Gothic (reloading in the dungeon has a minor time penalty, which can eventually age your characters)
* Saviors of Sapphire Wings
* Ys 1 and 2 (also Ys 3, but not on GOG)
* Civilization games and similar

Save only at certain points:
* Ultima 4 allows saving only on the overworld
* Stranger of Sword City Revisited
* Timespinner and Bloodstained (but they're still manual saves, unlike in something like Hollow Knight, and to me that's a significant difference)

Perhaps I could mention that the Elder Scrolls games have manual save anywhere. (In fact, because of bugs, it's best to save often and in multiple slots when playing one of these games; probably a good idea for WRPGs in general, for the reasons I mentioned in the topic where I explained why WRPGs are buggier than JRPGs.)

Also, The Alliance Alive HD Remastered has an interesting approach: You can manually save anywhere, but you only get one slot. (Note that this save doesn't have any other catches; you can reload from it as many times as you want.) However, you also get to save at the inn, and you have plenty of inn save slots.
It's not a linear progression.
Case in point:
* Nethack effectively lets you save anywhere, but the save is effectively deleted on reload or death. (This is typical for roguelikes.)
* Final Fantasy 3 (Famicom) only lets you save in certain spots, but you can reload the save as much as you want. This becomes a major issue in the final dungeon, due to the fact that the only place you can save is relatively early in the compound dungeon (after the 1st of 4 parts), and there are a total of 6 bosses you need to kill after the point of no return (plus 1 fight you're supposed to lose).

(There's also a difference between automatic checkpoint saving and manual save point saving.)


Forgot to mention:
* Ys 6, Ys Oath in Felghana, and Ys Origin only allow saving in specific spots. (Note that I am not familiar with any of the later Ys games and how they handle saving.)

Personally I think you should change the description then. Peoples are used of "checkpoint" games where the game save automatically for them, so "manual save" is not synonymous with "save everywhere" nowadays, it might cause confusion for peoples.

this seems totally pointless

thanks, now the name of the list specifies "save everywhere anytime"
thank you. That link is an empty black page for me, google sheets is fine.
thank you, I was thinking of adding it last night but i wasn't sure

That's very weird. Works for me, and I use Pale Moon (non-chrome & non-firefox), which is known for site issues, due to google chrome(ium) monopoly having many sites be specifically tailored for it.

How about https://cryptpad.fr/sheet/?

If not, then a Gibiru and Brave Search (non-google) turned up this issue about CSP headers: https://github.com/xwiki-labs/cryptpad/issues/246 (did you check browser console log?)

Are you using any (google ad)blockers or (google CDN)replacers?

Rimworld has manual saves, as and when you wish, and the ability to delete individual saves as one wishes, too.

I'm playing on Linux, so the location of the save games are:

/home/<account folder>/.config/unity3d/Ludeon Studios/RimWorld by Ludeon Studios/Saves (This folder will be hidden)

On other systems, the save game locations are apparently as followed...

WINDOWS: C:/Users/[username]/AppData/LocalLow/Ludeon Studios/RimWorld/ (Note the AppData folder may be hidden)
MAC: /Users/[username]/Library/Application Support/RimWorld/

There is yet another consideration one might be interested in collecting.

The XCom games have manual saves. As well as autosaving the last three turns in a mission and the last point before the mission began, which can be supplemented at any time with manual saves. The original reboot uses the in-game calendar as the game save title with no option to change it, but the later games do allow for the player to call the save anything (up to the character limit, which is a couple of dozen alphanumerics and a most of the special characters) which makes the hundreds (I probably have thousands) of game saves easier to manage.

Some games only have a limited number of save slots, and some of those only have generic ordination for the nomenclature. (System Shock is one, IIRC.) Other games display more metadata, like how far through the chapter / total game progress, or even who is a member of the party, as in the Infinity Engine series, which keeps their portraits with the save. Neverwinter Nights has a screenshot .

Reminds me of the Elder Scrolls series, where it works as follows (all these games allow save anywhere, even during combat):
* Arena: 10 save slots (perhaps understandable due to the limitations of the time), named as you wish
* Daggerfall: 6 save slots (a step down from Arena, and it a game that's considerably buggier, making it more necessary to save in multiple slots), named as you wish
* Morrowind: Infinite slots, named as you with. However, you can't save until you complete the tutorial (which is fortunately very short and doesn't have anything that can kill you).
* Oblivion: Infinite slots, but for whatever reason you can no longer name the saves. (Why did they do that?) You *can* save during the tutorial, which is good because it's a lot longer than Morrowind's, and it actually has enemies. (Note that you can respec your character at the end of the tutorial, so some players make a save there and just re-use it whenever they want to start over with a new character.)

I think this is a good system, manual saves that are supplemented by autosaves.

This approach isn't that unusual, as I've seen it in games like Baldur's Gate 1/2, Wizardry 8, and Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Some games even have the option of allowing you to configure the number of autosaves and quicksaves to keep. (Worth noting, however, that these particular games don't allow mid-battle saves. This isn't an issue for many games, but it could be for Wizardry 8, which is notorious for the amount of time some combats can take.)

Interestingly, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, which is like Kingmaker in terms of saving, has one feature that can trigger a save when it isn't normally allowed. If you press Alt-B, the game will make a save file, and then present you with a screen where you can report a bug in the game. (I wouldn't be surprised if, should you follow through and actually submit a bug report, the save file gets sent with the report.)

I'm of the opinion that, if difficulty affects saving, then the game should either:
* Have saving be the only thing affected by difficulty (like how I Wanna Be the Guy removes save points at higher difficulties (though I wish they wouldn't call the "easy mode only" save points "WUSS")), or
* allow the way saves work to be customizable independently of the difficulty setting (like Iron Man modes in games like Wizardry 8, Temple of Elemental Evil, both Pathfinder games)

Also, games should not lock things like gameplay modes behind modes that restrict saving or turn on permadeath.