Perl doesn't do tilde expansion—that's a shell thing. Your last line would need to be:

$cfg->write("$ENV{HOME}/.kenesis");
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Also, you're missing a semi-colon on the $special_item line.

Update: Config::Simple apparently reports errors (in write(), for instance) with false return values. As such, you could have known what was up with code like this:

$cfg->write("~/.kenesis") or die $cfg->error();
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Reports:

'~/.kenesis' couldn't be opened for writing: No such file or directory
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'~/.kenesis' couldn't be opened for writing: No such file or directory

I doubt, though, that this message would have helped a lot here.  Someone starting out with the conviction that ~ (tilde) would work from Perl like it does in the shell, would probably have begun wondering why their home directory isn't writable for themselves, or some such... :)

The message is telling exactly what's wrong. There is no directory '~'. It doesn't say anything about a "permission denied". So, there's no need to wonder.

I think if it would do a ~ expansion, it should state the expanded path in the error message (just like the shell does).

$ touch ~/test.txt
$ chmod a-w ~/test.txt
$ echo "string" > ~/test.txt
bash: /home/user/test.txt: Permission denied
$
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That's true, but it would have been a good clue to us. I started answering the OP without even knowing how Config::Simple reports errors. Having the error in front of me would have gotten me to the answer faster.

A quick fix would be to do my $rc_dir = glob("~"); and use $rc_dir, though something like use File::HomeDir; my $rc_dir = File::HomeDir->my_data; would be better.

it does not work

Do you see no output file named ".kenesis" in your home directory? Neither do I when I run your script. But, if I change:

$cfg->write("~/.kenesis");
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to:

$cfg->write("/home/toolic/.kenesis");
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I do get a file named ".kenesis" in my home directory. Perhaps Config::Simple does not expand the tilde properly.

I'm not sure you can use autosave if you have not loaded a config file, but it could be useful if you tell us what goes wrong:

• it throws an error message?
• Which error(s)?
• Adding use strict; use warnings; does something change?
• It does not save to the file?
• Or save wrong values?
• Which values?

I've commented out the autosave line and still no go As for your other questions No it does not throw and error message, it just continues on like nothing is wrong The actual program does have use strict; use warnings; I use them on all my Perl scripts. I just posted the lines of code that deals with Config::Simple to cut down on pointless code being posted. The problem is that I can't get it to create the ".kenesis" file.

sub load_game {
    $cfg->read("'$ENV{HOME}/.kenesis'");
    @player = $cfg->param("player");
    @enemy = $cfg->param("enemy");
    $completed_quests = $cfg->param("quest");
    $special_item = $cfg->param("items");
    $class = $cfg->param("class");
    #main_menu();
    print "@player\n";
    print "@enemy\n";
    print "$completed_quests\n";
    print "$special_item\n";
    print "$class\n";
    exit;
}
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our @player;
our $completed_quests = 0;
our $special_item = "none";
our @enemy;
our $class = "null";
our $cfg;
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Quite possibly &load_game is being called before $cfg becomes a Config::Simple object.

[...] all of my variables are defined

our @player;
our $completed_quests = 0;
our $special_item = "none";
our @enemy;
our $class = "null";
our $cfg;
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From that snippet, I see some of variables being declared but not defined, namely $cfg. Missing also from the snippet are the stages at which &load_game and &Config::Simple::new are being called.

$cfg->read("'$ENV{HOME}/.kenesis'")

What's with two kinds of quotes around file name? Is a file name actually being surrounded by single quotes (on the file system)?

The variables are defined before everything else, the only reason the the arrays are not defined there is because they are defined later after the class as been selected. the &load_game code comes after everything is defined. The two quotes around the file name $cfg->read("'$ENV{HOME}/.kenesis'") is the only way I was able to get $cfg->read to see the .kenesis file, I'm not sure why I had to though.
I guess it would be easier for people to review the whole code, I have the project hosted on Google Code and the file can be viewed here. This should help everyone see where everything is at.

Bareword found where operator expected at -e line 1, near "/etc/bash"
        (Missing operator before bash?)
syntax error at -e line 1, near "/etc/bash"
Execution of -e aborted due to compilation errors.
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Running this code:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use Config::Simple;

our $cfg;
my @player;
my $completed_quests = "zero";
my $special_item = "zero";
my @enemy;
my $class = "zero";

$cfg = new Config::Simple(syntax=>'simple');
$cfg->autosave(1);
$cfg->param("player", "@player");
$cfg->param("quest", "$completed_quests");
$cfg->param("items", "$special_item");
$cfg->param("enemy", "@enemy");
$cfg->param("class", "$class");
$cfg->write("$ENV{HOME}/.kenesis");
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outside of my game works but when using it inside the game it doesn't. Maybe it is the way I have it running, right now I have the code for Config::Simple spread out in my main program, but in this test one they are all grouped together variables are created and given a value then everything is written to the file.