Data Persistence - Save & load your game state while avoiding common mistakes

Learn how to save and load data in Unity - avoiding common mistakes and dangerous serialization techniques many other tutorials will tell you to use!

In this video we'll look at using text-based serialization using JSON and optionally encrypt that data. I also discuss some of the pros/cons for using text-based serialization, and what you should use instead if you really want to/need to use a binary serialization technique.

Common suggestions that you should absolutely not use to persist game state data are:

1. Player Prefs - these are not designed for storing game state. Only...Player Preferences such as graphic & audio settings.

2. BinaryFormatter - this class is dangerous and insecure. Use of this class can allow an attacker to take over the system. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/serialization/binaryformatter-security-guide

👨‍💻 As always, all code from this video is available on GitHub: https://github.com/llamacademy/persistent-data/

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📚 Resources 📚

⚫ JSON.Net: https://www.newtonsoft.com/json

⚫ Encrypt/Decrypt Data with AES: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.security.cryptography.aes?view=net-6.0

⚫ Binary Formatter Security: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/serialization/binaryformatter-security-guide

⚫ Unity JSON.Net Package: https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.nuget.newtonsoft-json@3.0/manual/index.html

⚫ Protobuf (BinaryFormatter alternative): https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf

⚫ Protobuf C# Docs: https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/docs/csharptutorial

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