Wondering how to save in prologue Alien Market Simulator? The short answer is: you cannot manually save your game until the opening tutorial is completely finished. Developer Silly Sloth Studios designed the game's opening chapter as a single, uninterrupted instance to teach you the ropes of cosmic retail. If you quit, power down, or experience a hard crash before the end of this sequence, you will lose everything and be forced to start from scratch.
In this comprehensive guide, we will cover exactly what triggers the save unlock, how to speedrun the necessary steps to secure your progress, and how to stabilize your game settings to prevent devastating progress loss before you hit that crucial first checkpoint.
The Frustrating Reality of How to Save in Prologue Alien Market Simulator
The premise of Alien Market Simulator is as punishing as its save system. You begin the game as a convicted prisoner who has just been granted bail by the Intergalactic Police. To pay off your cosmic debt and earn your freedom, you are sent to a distant, unknown planet to restore and manage a dilapidated space station market.
Because you are on probation, the game's prologue acts as your rigorous initiation. The developers intentionally locked the save feature during this phase to simulate the high-stakes pressure of your first day on the job. You must prove your worth before the Intergalactic Police grant you access to standard station privileges—including the ability to save your timeline.
Players on the Steam Community forums, such as user Azza909, have frequently reported the frustration of saving the game via the menu, leaving, and returning only to find the game starting from the absolute beginning. The developer explicitly clarified that the game does not actually record your save state until you have fully completed the tutorial and triggered the ACH_PrologueComplete achievement. Until that achievement pops, your progress is strictly temporary.
Speedrun Strategy: How to Save in Prologue Alien Market Simulator Faster
Because you are at the mercy of power outages, real-life interruptions, and early-access game crashes, your best defense is to finish the tutorial as quickly as humanly possible. If you know exactly what the game expects, you can clear the prologue in under ten minutes.
Here is the optimal path to unlock the save feature without wasting time on unnecessary tasks:
1. Acknowledge Intergalactic Police Bail As soon as you spawn, ignore the trash on the floor. Walk directly to the main terminal and click through the dialogue acknowledging your debt.
2. Unpack 10 Starter Crates Grab the boxes outside the airlock. Do not worry about organizing them perfectly by category; just throw the items onto the nearest empty shelves to fulfill the quota.
3. Set Initial Prices Using your pricing tool, quickly mark up the items. Do not spend time calculating the perfect profit margin. Just set them slightly above market value so you can move on to the next objective.
4. Serve 5 Alien Customers Flip the open sign. You must successfully ring up the first wave of customers. Be quick with the register mini-game to avoid their patience meters depleting.
5. Terminal Check-In Once the fifth customer leaves, the tutorial prompt will instruct you to close the store. Do this immediately and return to the main computer to finalize your first day.
By strictly adhering to this sequence, you bypass the optional cleaning tasks (like the ACH_Trash_100 grind) and push the game state directly to the ACH_PrologueComplete trigger.
Troubleshooting: How to Save in Prologue Alien Market Simulator Without Crashing
Nothing is more infuriating than reaching the final customer of the tutorial only to experience a hard crash to the desktop. Because Alien Market Simulator is a physics-heavy simulation game featuring dozens of independent AI pathfinding routines, early builds can be unstable on certain hardware configurations.
Players have noted that the Price Change Bug (where customers buy items regardless of absurd markups) and the Level 3 Unlock issue can occasionally cause menu soft-locks. If you get soft-locked during the tutorial, you cannot save, meaning you have to force-quit and restart.
To ensure maximum stability during this critical unsaved window, you need to adjust your graphics settings before you even click "New Game."
First, turn V-Sync Off in the display menu, as it has been known to cause stuttering during the customer influx. Next, keep your Shadows Low; the dynamic lighting from the neon signs combined with alien character models is a massive resource hog. It is also highly recommended to perform a RAM Clearing by closing background browser tabs and overlay applications before launching the game. Uncapped and unoptimized, the game can easily reach a GPU Load 85% / CPU Load 15% bottleneck during the prologue, which is a prime recipe for a thermal crash.
Post-Tutorial: Managing Saves and the Intergalactic Police Terminal
Once you survive the first day and the achievement unlocks, the training wheels come off. The game opens up, allowing you to unlock restrooms, upgrade fuel pumps, and deal with alien bug infestations (ACH_Bug_10). More importantly, you finally gain control over your save data.
To manage your progress going forward, you will need to regularly interact with the Intergalactic Police Terminal located behind your checkout counter. You will notice four key features on this screen:
First, The daily check-in button proves your worth. You must click this at the end of every shift to advance the calendar and trigger the game's auto-save function.
Below that, The manual save slot appears only after the prologue. You can use this at any point during the day to create a hard backup before making a risky inventory purchase or expanding your station.
Exiting the menu is seamless, as Cloud sync activates upon closing the terminal. This ensures your Steam Cloud is updated immediately, protecting you against local drive failures.
Finally, your Bail status tracks your overall debt progress. While not directly related to saving, keeping an eye on this meter is crucial, as failing to pay your daily percentage can result in a game-over state that wipes your current run.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do I have to start over every time I play? If you are continuously starting from the beginning, you are quitting the game before completing the prologue. You must finish the first in-game day and check in at the terminal to unlock saving.
Can I save mid-day after the prologue? Yes. Once the tutorial is finished, you can manually save at any point during your shift via the main menu or the terminal.
What happens if I fail the Intergalactic Police check-in? If you fail to meet your daily debt obligations later in the game, you will be penalized. If you go bankrupt, your save file may be locked into a game-over state, forcing a restart of your cosmic career.
The Final Word
Surviving the first hour of your new cosmic retail job is a frustrating but necessary rite of passage. Once you push through the un-saveable tutorial, the galaxy opens up, allowing you to build the ultimate deep-space commerce empire. Keep your settings optimized, rush the initial objectives, and that elusive save button will be yours.
Sources
- Steam Community Discussions: Alien Market Simulator Bug Reports (Azza909, Gundula van Wattenstorm)
- SteamDB: Alien Market Simulator Achievements & Update History
- Silly Sloth Studios / Kheddo Entertainment: Official Release Notes and Developer Responses