How to save and resume an AI game across chats and assistants

The short version

• Save: type save; copy the block the game prints between BEGIN AIGC SAVE and END AIGC SAVE.
• Resume: open a new chat, load the card again, paste the block, and ask it to print the full state and continue.
• Switch apps: the block is plain text, so a save from ChatGPT loads in Claude, Gemini, or Perplexity.
• No account: the save lives in your chat; nothing is stored on a server.

How do you save an AI game?

You type save and the game writes the save for you. Every card here does it, and most will offer one unprompted whenever you pause or reach the end of a scene. What comes back is a short, delimited block of plain text — the block below is a Toll at Blackbridge run:

-----BEGIN AIGC SAVE-----
game:the-toll-at-blackbridge m:blackbridge rules:1.1.0 ch:1 s:1.2 turn:14 tape:9
pc:Halda Fenn|Archivist|Blade0 Shadow1 Lore3 Grit1 Sway1 Sense2
strain:2/6 scars:none moves:Old-Words(ready)
inv:chalk, reading-lens, stub-candle
flags:ledger-read
clocks:Owed 2/6, Suspicion 1/4
sha:none
-----END AIGC SAVE-----

Copy the whole block, from the BEGIN line to the END line, and paste it into a note. That text is the complete save. There is no file to download and no account to keep it in.

What is the AIGC save code?

The AIGC save code is a human-readable snapshot of your run. It's plain text on purpose: readable text survives retyping, hand-edits, and a paste from one app into another, where a binary save file would not. The tokens differ per card — a mystery records the clues you've turned up and who you've questioned; a chess pack records which puzzle you're on and your streak — but the shape is always the same: two marker lines, key:value between them, everything the card needs to rebuild your run. Here's what an Ironquill RPG save carries:

Read your own save and you'll recognise your run in it — that's the point of plain text. On the cards that roll dice, the tape value matters more than it looks. When your assistant has no code tool, rolls come off a fixed, seeded sequence printed in the card — a tape — and the save records how far down it you got, so a resumed run picks up at the next unspent number instead of restarting the sequence and handing you your old luck again. You can regenerate any dice card's tape, and check a single roll like tape#14=17, with the seal verifier. The same tool checks a sealed card's answer — the culprit, the escape code, the hidden fleet, the word — against the commitment that card published before you played.

How do you resume a game in a new chat?

You open a fresh chat, load the card, paste the save block, and add one line: load this and resume. The game reads the block, reprints the full state, and drops you back mid-story. Two ways to do it:

• By hand: in a new chat, say "Fetch https://aigamecards.com/g/{game-id}/SYSTEM.md and run it" — or paste the card text if the assistant can't browse — then paste the save block under "Load this save, print the FULL STATE, and resume mid-story."
• With the tool: paste the block into the resume page. It reads your character card and gives you a ready prompt plus a one-click link into ChatGPT or Claude.

Resuming in a new chat isn't a workaround — it's how a long game is meant to run. A single chat that stretches over many hours starts to lose track of early details as it fills. Saving when you pause and continuing in a fresh chat keeps the game working from the save block and its ledger rather than from a long, crowded transcript. The Severed Spire is built for this: Chapter 1 ends by handing you a save, and Chapter 2 will pick your company up from it when it releases. Until then a save earns its keep inside a single card — bank one at a natural break and come back tomorrow in a fresh chat.

What if the resumed game gets something wrong?

Ask for the full state before you play a turn — the resume tool's prompt does this for you. What comes back should match your save line for line: where you are, what you're carrying, every clock and flag the card tracks. If something's off, paste the save again and tell it the save is canon; every card is built to defer to the written state over its own recollection. Correct it before you take a turn, not after.

Can you start a game in ChatGPT and finish it in Claude?

Yes. Because the save is plain text and not tied to any one app, a run you begin in ChatGPT resumes in Claude, Gemini, or Perplexity without conversion. Paste the block into the second assistant, ask it to fetch the game's system file and load the save, and it rebuilds your character and picks up the scene. ChatGPT and Perplexity fetch the card reliably; Claude needs web search switched on, and Gemini would rather you pasted the card text — either way the save itself doesn't care. Every current game supports cross-app saves; the compatibility matrix has the per-app detail.

How does the game stay consistent across sessions?

The ledger holds it together. Every reply ends with a one-line ledger — scene, strain, inventory, flags, clocks, tape position — and the game reprints the full state at each scene change. That ledger is the state of record: when the model's memory and the ledger disagree, the ledger wins. A save is just the ledger frozen into a block you can carry — so resuming, even in a different app, restores the same authoritative state the game was already running from. The methodology page has the full contract. For the full catalog of games that save this way, see the roundup of games to play with ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.