In ICO, numerous stone sofas can be found at regular intervals inside and outside the castle. They are the only means by which the player can save the game.
The following is the description of the sofas given in the Japanese manual of ICO, translated by mysticode54:[1]
Here and there throughout the Castle, there were sofas made of stone with strange patterns painted on them. The pattern seemed to react to the girl, and when she approached the sofa, the pattern emitted light, making it seem as if a miraculous power dwelled in the sofa.
Ico gently sat down on the sofa by himself, but nothing happened. However, when the girl sat next to Ico, the pair were blanketed by a curious feeling and fell asleep. This sofa was a keeper of memory.
If the girl and Ico sit on the sofa and etch their memories into it, then even if Ico forgets about that part of the Castle for a while, they will always be able to return to that place.
In order for Ico to return to his original position after being separated from the Castle, all he needs to do is select "Continue" while looking out over the panoramic view of the Castle and choose the location of the sofa he wants to return to. The sofa could store up to 10 memories.
Location in the Castle[]
There are 14 sofas found in the whole castle. There's also one other save point at the very end of the game that doesn't use a sofa.
A regular red version of the save sofa was rendered in Lightwave3D by Kazuhiro Numata during the PlayStation 1 Era of ICO.[2] It's possible it was added to the game at some point, as the main executable includes the path to a cut model: "object/sdf/obj_com01/model/sofa_red2.p2o".
