diff --git a/src/GamePanel.java b/src/GamePanel.java
index c8bf2de..1442637 100644
--- a/src/GamePanel.java
+++ b/src/GamePanel.java
@@ -11,9 +11,12 @@ import java.awt.*;
 import java.awt.event.*;
 import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
 import java.io.File;
+import java.io.FileReader;
+import java.io.FileWriter;
 import java.io.IOException;
 import javax.imageio.ImageIO;
 import java.util.ArrayList;
+import java.util.Scanner;
 import javax.swing.*;
 
 public class GamePanel extends JPanel implements Runnable, KeyListener{
@@ -193,4 +196,23 @@ public class GamePanel extends JPanel implements Runnable, KeyListener{
     return flippedImage;
   }
 
+  public void writeFile(String fileLocation, String writeString) throws IOException {
+    File newFile = new File(fileLocation);
+    FileWriter fileWriter = new FileWriter(newFile);
+    fileWriter.write(writeString);
+    fileWriter.close();
+  }
+
+  // will create file if it doesn't exist
+  public String readFile(String fileLocation) throws IOException {
+    File newFile = new File(fileLocation);
+    if (newFile.createNewFile()) {
+      return null;
+    } else {
+      Scanner fileReader = new Scanner(newFile);
+      // using the delimiter \\Z reads the entire file at once
+      return fileReader.useDelimiter("\\Z").next();
+    }
+  }
+
 }
\ No newline at end of file