When you’re thinking of files which you really should include in a backup, then saved games probably don’t rank highly on the list. But maybe they should. After all, in some cases your current game state will represent hours, days, maybe weeks of effort, and if for some reason this gets lost, will you really want to start again from the very beginning? (No. Didn’t think so.)

It can make sense to back up at least some of your saves, then. And there are few easier ways to do this than with a copy of SaveGameBackup.

The program is portable, for instance, so there’s no need for installation: just unzip it and go.

SaveGameBackup supports 1,377 games, as we write, including all the big names and even the contents of your Steam database (double-click entries.htm in the program’s folder for the latest list). Although if somehow your favourite game isn’t on the list, then you can point the program at the necessary folder, files and Registry settings, and in future it’ll include those saves along with everything else.

When you launch the program, SaveGameBackup will display any supported games it detects, and you can back up or restore your chosen items in a couple of clicks.

And, conveniently, the program even zips up your saves to reduce the disk space requirements. Which could also be handy if you want to share your saves with friends, for instance.

One small complication is that SaveGameBackup 2.0 is a beta, so in theory may contain bugs. It worked well for us, though, and is still worth a try: the program is compact, easy to use, and a great way to protect your saved games from harm.