Saving Using XmlSerializer and PlayerPrefs

Unity Engine
1

I have a save system for my game state that seems to be working. Just want to know what (if any) are the downsides to this technique. Details below:

To save:

-Serialize my game state to an xml string
-Save xml string to PlayerPrefs.

To load:
-Read xml string from PlayerPrefs
-Deserialize into my GameState object.

Like I said, this is all working great right now. I had been saving to/from a file rather than PlayerPrefs but I switched to PlayerPrefs in anticipation of using something like Prime31’s iCloud plug-in which uses PlayerPrefs.

Here is the code:

public void LoadGameState()
	{
		if(PlayerPrefs.HasKey("GameState"))
		{
			//load state
			XmlSerializer xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(GameState.GetType());
			StringReader stringReader = new StringReader(PlayerPrefs.GetString("GameState"));
			GameState = (GameState)xmlSerializer.Deserialize(stringReader);
		}
		else
		{
			//create new
			GameState = GameState.CreateNew();
			SaveGameState();
		}
		
		CurrentWorld = GameState.Worlds[0];
		CurrentLevel = GameState.Worlds[0].Levels[0];
	}
	
	public void SaveGameState()
	{
		XmlSerializer xmlSerializer = new System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer(GameState.GetType());
		StringWriter stringWriter = new StringWriter();
		
		xmlSerializer.Serialize(stringWriter, GameState);
		Debug.Log("Save state to player prefs");			
		PlayerPrefs.SetString("GameState",stringWriter.ToString());		
	}
2

The one downside is that you will not be able to use micro framework stripping level, building for iOS. There is no System.Xml API in micro framework.

3

I have a similar system but use JSON. I also save out a checksum in an effort to make it less prone to tampering.

4

I’m ok with not using the micro framework stripping… my game should still come in well under the min allowed by iPhone/iPad.

If that is the only downside, I’m good to go.

Thanks!

5

I have used the out-of-box .NET XML serialization in iOS project - everything worked fine, but eventually I had to switch to JSON because of Micro framework.