Okay, I did a 37-minute speedrun and recorded it.
A few suggestions for the livestream:
After some experimentation, it seems to take exactly 1,360 instances of "estimate time" to pass an hour (for the record, I did not manually press "e" 1,360 times but had that automated). 1,360 happens to be exactly 340 * 4, which suggests that one step passes 4 times as much time as estimating time (and also that @453's estimate was spot on).
Also: I'm not sure about this, but NPCs seem to possibly move slightly variable amounts of steps for each player action. I tried estimating time repeatedly in the presence of a patrolling guard. The guard would usually move half a tile for every time I pressed "e" (0 tiles –> 0.5 tiles –> 0 tiles –> 0.5 tiles, etc.). But every once in a while, he would move half a tile twice in a row, or not move twice in a row. I couldn't find any pattern to this and I didn't try it enough times to rule out some error on my part.
After some experimentation, it seems to take exactly 1,360 instances of "estimate time" to pass an hour (for the record, I did not manually press "e" 1,360 times but had that automated). 1,360 happens to be exactly 340 * 4, which suggests that one step passes 4 times as much time as estimating time (and also that @453's estimate was spot on).
Also: I'm not sure about this, but NPCs seem to possibly move slightly variable amounts of steps for each player action. I tried estimating time repeatedly in the presence of a patrolling guard. The guard would usually move half a tile for every time I pressed "e" (0 tiles –> 0.5 tiles –> 0 tiles –> 0.5 tiles, etc.). But every once in a while, he would move half a tile twice in a row, or not move twice in a row. I couldn't find any pattern to this and I didn't try it enough times to rule out some error on my part.
I believe this is him. He's also in this picture ("I'm the only one with my eyes squeezed tightly shut").
After doing some sleuthing (starting with Googling "stephen r. banks" mac gaming), I think this is the Stephen R. Banks in question. There are a couple low-res photos of him on that site, and—assuming that's the right guy—I also found his Facebook (which I figure is better to not post). In any case, I don't immediately recognize his face from any of the Cythera portraits.
I would guess it's most likely that the easter egg was simply cut or never implemented at all, but it would be interesting if it were referenced in some clever way we haven't figured out yet.
I second 453's suggestions, although the subjects of those topics are already linked on the Cythera Guides main page. The soundtrack topic in particular might be a bit redundant, but the other two have a lot of relevant discussion (plus a transcript of the livestream chat).
The ASW topic or a direct link to Wizard's archive might be handy to have linked somewhere, but neither are really Cythera-related.
I haven't read the books, but I also read through the Wikipedia summaries a few days ago (I'm not really bothered by spoilers as a general rule), looking for clues relating to the prophecies. I didn't find much, but I did notice Ghisteslwchlohm ("an ancient, evil wizard and traitor from ages past") reminded me of Tavara. So this part seemed interesting:
Sensing a powerful, dangerous force in pursuit across her land, Raederle uses her abilities to confound it, thinking she is protecting Morgon; but discovers that the force she thought was Ghisteslwchlohm is Morgon himself, who has stolen much of Ghisteslwchlohm's power during his long captivity, while the helpless man he pursued was Deth, who betrayed him.
Morgon seems to be the protagonist of the first book. gandreas said "Tavara" is an anagram of/reference to "Avatar," the player character in the Ultima games…
I would like to nominate "Seldanish" as a third (fourth?) option. Anyway, I see three different branches of the language that might not be related to each other: spoken, written, and transliterated.
gandreas says the spoken language is based on phonetic ancient Egyptian. That seems plausible, based on the Cythera 2 phrase connections, as well as the 20 minutes I just spent trying to research ancient Egyptian phonetics and getting very confused.
The written language seems to be based on the Greek alphabet, as @Pallas-Athene observed in the earlier topic. And as he speculated back then, the font may have originally been intended to be used for (human) Cytheran writing, and then later appropriated to represent Seldane writing.
The transliteration (e.g. "ERI AY N USXT WN") might be gibberish, but it seems to bear some structural resemblance to transliteration of ancient Egyptian (namely, the short "words" and lack of fondness for vowels). Also, since the alphabet seems to be based on Greek (rather than hieroglyphics or hieratic), the idea that the text only exists to map characters to symbols seems a bit less likely.
Also of note: "ka" apparently means soul in ancient Egyptian.
I just did the click-and-hold trick to speed up the sleeping, but normally you'd still see it fade to black. Music and fading have never worked on my SheepShaver build for some reason.
Credit to @vIsitor for the Stentor timing suggestion, doing so saved close to a minute alone. This is probably the last one I'm doing in this style for now. I'm guessing ~16 minutes is the fastest possible time without hacking or using the menu patch feature.
@453 said in Cythera Speedruns:
I've installed the menu patch now and I feel like it speeds up travel significantly. However, it may also make it harder to control your character, so I'm curious whether this feature would be helpful for a speedrun.
Yeah, I just tried it out, and it's dizzying. I also wonder what the fastest possible time on the slower setting is.
I tried to do a "speedrun" using Ignae as my character (invincible, can fly), but it still took me about an hour! I forgot to check exactly how long. Speed is so stressful for me, I want to do everything "right" and I end up having to backtrack. I also neglected to get any followers, which forced me to fight my way out from enemies surrounding me on a few occasions. I obviously was a pretty weak character, so that was time consuming even though I was in no danger. Got slowed down by harpies both times I visited Jhiaxus...
I keep a checklist open to avoid having to backtrack. It seems like @Wizard made a similar set of notes. This is the one I used for the 18-minute run:
storyteller
Omen's Test: shortcut
LKH
get items: equip, death strike + direct nexus
+ cloak from dresser + pouch
death strike on magic chest
ask hector to join
hadrian train defense (2)
grab white purple black potions
get hector
Odemia
get ariadne mission
Vineyard
ask sad guy about name
get kelp, shovel, grapes
dig book, put in pouch
Catamarca
put book in pouch
cure plague (get hector to kill polyps)
make sure mustache man follows up
ask propontis about comana
Kosha
ask itanos about stentor
ask itanos about idom
sleep until dawn + 1 more hour
Cademia
ask stentor about job and pelagon
sleep 1 hour
ask halos about prop
Kosha: ask pelagon about dead
go to sewers, straight past bridge, ask dryas about awful
leave sewers via ladder, bomb door, talk to stentor
back to sewers and out via pipe
turn dryas in
Pnyx
train casting (6) and mana (2) for now
ask lindus about crystal
ask pala about charax and wine and teach
heal + antidote potions
turn in books (6 - three times)
save + reload when done!
learn spells
mystic arrow: main library, right, middle
directed nexus: scroll
paka (s): remote manip (right)
tiri (e): fetch (second from top)
max out mana
meet timon, ask to join
use merged crolna on pedestal
Ayrit: west portal
Maayti
remote manip entrance
mage's friend potion + timon heal
fetch door
stick to inside path
get crolna shard
directed nexus out
sleep to recharge mana
Kosha
fetch secret door
sleep to recharge mana
enter grotto: "no" until force? "yes"
Cove: avoid crabs
arrow'd hydra, get book
directed nexus out
sleep until dawn, directed nexus
fetch table
bomb alaric's door
get alaric help
get mushroom from sabinate (just talk thru door)
west portal
give charax stuff
use distiller on crolna
directed nexus out
cure alaric
@453 said in Cythera Speedruns:
Do you always play as a female character? Or does she just look faster than the guy?
I didn't always, but I like how the portrait matches the sprite. Also, a lot of (most?) games force you to play as a dude, so I usually play female characters when the game gives you a choice.
Begging for food is definitely a waste of time. I stopped doing it on later runs, and you can just have Timon cast Nutrient if absolutely necessary.
Grabbing Eudoxus's mace is definitely worthwhile in a True and/or 100% speedrun. You can skip the rescue entirely in a False run, though (I haven't done so yet, but I did test to see if it works).
I was extremely Not Impressed with that beggar.
I am super confused. When you’re going up toward the magic staff, it sounds like three spells are being cast. The log isn’t shown in the video, so I have no clue what’s going on. You haven’t learned magic, and don’t have Timon in the party…
I'm just as confused, but it happened a number of times (always in that area). The log doesn't show anything when it happens.
Steal a potion in order to get Palaestra to stop teaching her class and talk to you about wine was really clever! I would not have thought of that.
I thought so too at first! But I think the time just happened to advance an hour, because when I tried the trick later, it didn't work.
I did some more experimenting. The requirements for triggering the murder seem to be:
You don't actually have to rescue Ariadne, but you do need to learn about the kidnapping. So a ~19-minute speedrun is possible: swing by Odemia to talk to the guard, but then skip the farmhouse entirely (and make sure to ask Propontis about Comana, since Ake isn't an option).
Then, as @453 points out, you can use Fetch on the secret entrance to the grotto. When I tried this, it proved a bit problematic due to Fetch's high mana cost and having to tackle the cove right after. But it is doable: you'd need to either grab the bow early on, keep Timon and his mystic arrow alive, or use a bomb (since they aren't needed for Eudoxus) to take care of the hydra.