This worked, thank you so much!! I used your code as a starting point and incorporated it into my existing code:
if room = rm_start {
if keyboard_check_pressed(ord("D")) {
ini_open("../options.ini");
// debug purposes: delete section if exists
if ini_section_exists(global.section) {
ini_section_delete(global.section);
show_debug_message("data section deleted");
}
ini_close();
}
if keyboard_check_pressed(ord("Z")) {
global.sfx = "blip"; // sfx global var used in switch case
// ini check code
ini_open("../options.ini");
show_debug_message("ini successfully opened"); // console message
if ini_section_exists(global.section) {
if (ini_read_real(global.section, global.key, -1) = global.val) {
global.firstTime = false; // used in other code to display/hide screen
show_debug_message("section AND key exist - RETURNING PLAYER");
} else {
global.firstTime = true;
ini_write_real(global.section, global.key, global.val);
show_debug_message("section exists BUT key DOESN'T (I think?)- NEW GAME");
}
} else {
global.firstTime = true;
ini_write_real(global.section, global.key, global.val);
show_debug_message("section DOESN'T exist - NEW PLAYER");
}
ini_close();
room_goto(rm_game);
}
if keyboard_check_pressed(vk_escape) {
game_end();
}
}
Some really weird things were happening, like the INI section would never truly delete. I kept pressing "D" in-game and would keep getting that message over and over again, which seems impossible since it only runs if the section exists. So every time I reuploaded the zip for my game, I'd have to change the global.section string name to something different, because the previous section would still exist even after I'd deleted it.
There was also an issue with starting a new game, where I had to delete both the key and the section and do a check for that. Not completely sure why I had to do some of the things I had to do, but I ended up with three different states - returning players, players who started a new game in-game, and completely new first-time players.
Quick question - wondering if you've ever run into this: do you have to randomly generate save file names? Mine is just hardcoded into my game:
save_file = "dive-bitsloth-fIt0QNLgfAlboxByK9zdWOKRXRvzbMWeafIm4Q6LLlV9vykE5T.save";
If that save file is hosted on itch's servers, wouldn't all users be pulling from the same one? The thing is though, I tested it on two laptops (using the secret url, still unpublished) and got two separate, correct save instances for each user, so it does seem to work, though I'm confused as to how! Let me know if you've got any experience with this :)
Thanks for all the help! Your advice and coding insights have been really valuable. I'm going to try exporting to Mac and Windows too so I may bother you about that as well ;). I recently found out that you need a (paid) apple developer account for mac exports, so that's unfortunate.
Will add you on discord when I get a chance!