Savepoint spacing in an environmental

I've been happily building away at my large landscape for the second part of Falling Water for ages now, and just recently noticed that I forgot to put in any savepoints - so far. Easy to fix, certainly, but I'm suddenly finding myself very uncertain as to how far apart I should space the savepoints. This second part of my level is purely an environmental, and unlike the first part you can't even really fall into that many lakes or puddles in it. So... do I put one savepoint at the start of every new area, perhaps? (Distinct areas tend to be around 10 screens, currently.)

If the looks of glowing lights all around look bad in the level, you don't really have to put them close to each other. I mean, if there's no challenge getting between them, it should still classify as environmental.

If stuff that can kill you is scarce enough, you could put one on each side of a death screen. Maybe not..

If the level is large and non-linear, you should put enough that a player who wants to quit can reach a save point easily and in under a minute (be sure to place them in noticeable places). Otherwise, if progression is linear, you have much more freedom: I'd suggest about one every 5 minutes of play at least.

However, if you think your level may have some bugs, you don't want a player who gets trapped to fall back to a Save Point very far away (it's true you should avoid traps as well, but you'll never know until you beta-test).

If the looks of glowing lights all around look bad in the level, you don't really have to put them close to each other. I mean, if there's no challenge getting between them, it should still classify as environmental.

Some users have replaced save points with invisible Shifts acting as checkpoints (ShiftSave property), so you could try that as well.

You certainly don't have to put save spots in the level in case you die and need a respawn point. The only reason you would want save spots is so the user can save somewhere, quit, and continue another time. For that reason, make sure that it doesn't take up to 10 minutes before the player reaches the next save spot.

EDIT: I don't know if its possible to set a save using the warp object, but if that would be possible, it might be able to eliminate the requirements for save spots in your entire level, and make it save on every screen exit.

I agree with AA on save spacing. Somebody playing an environmental may want to quit at any time, so either once every minute of play or maybe shiftsaves in some places would be a good idea.

As for LPChip's idea, I don't think warps have a save function (never seen it in any level EVER), and it would still have to be specified on every screen to set it up.

Best bet would probably be a mix of savepoints and shiftsaves, with the shifts placed sparingly.

When I made Outer Reaches, I divided the level into sections (e.g. volcano, forest, factory, etc.). For sections where it as either impossible to die or at least very difficult, I put a savepoint at one or two of the entrances/exits, but rarely in the middle of it. For sections where it was possible to die, I put savespots near each entrance/exit and interspersed throughout it.

Thanks, all. I definitely do need savepoints, at a projected level size of 600-800 screens - nobody's going to play that through in one sitting, I think. *g* But yeah, maybe I'll keep them to one per area (plus extra ones in areas with a lot of water holes. *g*)