How to change the default “Save File Location” in VVVVVV on Mac OS X

In whatever folder Flash stores its saved data. On Windows, that's %APPDATA%\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\<random characters>\localhost\path\to\vvvvvv\vvvvvv.exe\.The random characters vary from computer to computer, so you'll have to check for yourself.

(I don't know where Flash stores data on Linux or Mac, but I would expect it's somewhere in your user folder.)

To give a concrete example, if you've placed VVVVVV.exe in C:\Program Files\VVVVVV\, then your saved data will be in %APPDATA%\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\<random characters>\localhost\program files\vvvvvv\vvvvvv.exe\.

If you've bought it on Steam, you should go to %APPDATA%\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\<random characters>\localhost\path\to\steam\steamapps\common\vvvvvv\vvvvvv.exe.

Note that this mean you will lose your saves if you do a generic clean of your Flash saved data.

When you install a game, Steam places it in ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/ and creates an alias in ~/Applications/ which you can use to launch the game. It does this because different games may have different directory structures—unfortunately, not all Mac games come in neatly-packaged app bundles. Because of this, it's not really possible (or a good idea) to trick Steam into putting the game data in /Applications/ instead.

It's safe to exclude ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/ from your backups since no user data is kept there, only the game installs. Save files are kept elsewhere in your home directory, depending on the game.

If you really want to keep game data out of your home directory, you can make a symbolic link at ~/Library/Application Support/SteamApps/ pointing to somewhere else on your disk, perhaps in /Users/Shared/. Here's how you do this:

1. Shut down Steam.
2. Move the ~/Library/Application Support/Steam/SteamApps/ folder to wherever you want it to be.
3. Open up Terminal and change to the Steam folder by typing:
   cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/Steam
4. Create a symbolic link in this folder pointing to the place you moved the SteamApps folder to:
   ln -s /Users/Shared/Steam/ SteamApps