Do you have to beat the game in one sitting?

I've played through the game up to the first miniboss (Kali), which was a six minutes long battle that kind of worn me out.

When the following encounter started, I decided that I'd take a break. After all, the pause menu says "SAVE & EXIT" and that sounded precisely like what I wanted to do. ("MAIN MENU" is also an option, so I assumed that was the "Don't save & exit" button. Both ask for confirmation.)

Nope! When I clicked then on next I was met again by encounter 24 (the first), with all mages at level 1.

Groan.

Do I have to do it all on one sitting? Can I restore my progress to that point in the game?

Solution 1:

No, you don't have to beat the game in one sitting. Save and Exit should work as you expect, as long as you are playing a legitimate copy of the game. You can post on the game's forum on Steam if you are encountering a bug with this.

Source: I'm the game's creator :)