Imagine if Real Life™ had a ‘Save’ button; that would be brilliant. You could hit ‘Save’, punch your boss in the jaw and reload. All the satisfaction, none of the gross misconduct hearings. Or you could load the save from just before you had your first ever Jaffa Cake and relive that wonderful experience. Or go back to 11pm last Friday and see how not drinking all that Sambuca would affect the following Saturday morning.

But, just as with games, you’d run the risk of losing a save file and, let’s face it, much of life is a slog that you wouldn’t want to repeat. Imagine setting out on a car journey knowing you’re about to be stuck in traffic for two hours before being asked your opinion on eighty-six seemingly-identical cushions in IKEA, or having to once again unlock the ability to play the violin to grade six. Or having to endure Twilight for the second time.

Ever since computer games began to include complex storylines or enough depth that starting from scratch each time was not an option, there have been mechanisms in place for resuming from where you left off, and each of these mechanisms has been subject to failure. Nothing can quite prepare you for the despair this will cause.

Back in The Olden Days™, games were a read-only affair, so at the end of a level it was common to be presented with a code which would allow you to bypass those levels already completed. If you were lucky, it would be a word that you could easily remember, but if there was a requirement for the game to be aware of more dynamic data – such as lives lost or items acquired – it would often be a string of seemingly random letters and numbers which you’d scribble on a scrap of paper.

As with most systems, however, the weak link in this process was the organic matter between the screen and keyboard. Scraps of paper are easily lost. You might have been on an adrenaline high when you wrote the code, resulting in little more than hastily-scrawled hieroglyphics staring back at you the following day. Regardless, if you can’t enter the correct code then back to the start you go.

At this point it would be common to experience denial (“No, it can’t be wrong. Try again. Maybe that’s an F”) or perhaps anger, with all its colourful language and keyboard abuse. And at the core of that, the uneasy knowledge that it was your own, stupid fault.

Pretty soon you’d accept your loss. Games were still fairly primitive and, at worst, you might have to spend a couple of hours repeating gameplay you’d already finished before you could carry on. There was always a silver lining though; you now knew the levels and could breeze through, often in a better position than you had been previously. And you’d learn from your mistake – next time you’d write the code down more carefully, perhaps in two different places. You wouldn’t get caught out again.

As technology progressed, the passcode systems were abandoned in favour of save files. Our computers did love us after all! They knew we couldn’t be trusted to write things down correctly! “You let me worry about that, my human master. Your game is safe and sound on this floppy disk.”

But it wasn’t, was it? I’m not familiar with the exact technology behind data being stored on a floppy disk, but I believe it primarily relied upon hopes and dreams. It was our fault really; we were expecting a lot from these pieces of plastic. We were so naïve, expecting something we’d written to the disk to still be present and few days later. So, once again we’d try to resume our progress through a game, only to be thwarted. “File not found.” “Save cannot be loaded.”

And all the while, the games evolved. Save files became bigger and floppy disks became hard drives. No longer were we simply trying to carry on from level eight; we were trying to recall sprawling cities we’d built on a wasteland of reticulated splines. We’d grown a thriving Mongol empire and crushed our Greek and Roman enemies over the course of hundreds of game years. We’d taken Woking to the Premiership, trained up our 17 year old wunderkind and were in contention for a Champions League spot. And because of one bad sector, it was all gone.

This time we wouldn’t recover so easily, however. You had to play the first few levels of Lemmings again? Boo-flippin-hoo. I’d created something, and my creations were now no more than memories. This time the sense of loss would be far more profound. Yeah, you could start again. But it would never be the same. When you build a theme park you do so organically; all your experiments and mistakes will never be repeated. Even if you could place every ride in the exact same spot it would only ever feel like a poor facsimile of what you’d lost.

It’s something that has followed me throughout my gaming life. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve stared blankly at a screen telling me that my save cannot be loaded, demanding that the computer try again. The most recent loss was down to my own careless mistake, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.

I was halfway through my second season in F1 2011. I’d finished fifth in the championship for Team Lotus in year one and was dragging my trusty Sauber kicking and screaming to the front of the grid for most races in year two. I’d initially saved my career on a USB stick so I could play at home or work, but at some point had changed to use my Xbox’s hard drive at home. After Cloud storage was enabled I decided to retire my USB stick and was transferring its contents to my HDD. When I pressed the button to confirm the overwrite, I instantly knew I’d made a mistake.

I could only sit and watch as my 30+ hour F1 career was consigned to history and replaced with my early save which had me starting 16^th in year one, race three. All that time spent finding the perfect car setup. The heroic effort to somehow keep it out of the walls to win at a rainy Monaco. The satisfaction of telling Ferrari to shove their contract offer up their Maranello. Gone.

In years gone by I might have started again, but I’m a grown man with responsibilities now. My gaming time is precious and I don’t want to waste it re-treading old ground, so F1 2011’s gone back on the shelf and probably shan’t see the light of day again.

Perhaps the benefits of a Real Life™ ‘Save’ button wouldn’t be able to outweigh the crushing disappointment of a lost or corrupt file. What if you had a catastrophic disk failure? All your life’s progress and achievements gone in the blink of an eye.

Back in the womb with you, my friend; hit ‘New Game’ and start again.

Last five articles by Graham

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• Game Saves