I like the approach of using a Mage, Buzzzzy! Having some extra mana can certainly help.

I wonder how each individual class fares in a speedrun? We know Rogues, Storytellers, and Mages can do well because they each bring something (awareness, persuasion, or magic). Somehow I doubt Fighters or Beserkers would be as effective given their skill set.

What I really want to know is... what about the Wizard? 😛

Regarding the run itself, apart from the two minor things about having to reload and forgetting sleep, you've got this down about as much as I can imagine it going. It was already shorter than mine even the first time I got to Charax before the disastrous attempt to attack him!

@Pallas-Athene said in Cythera Speedruns:

23:27 Sure would be nice if there were a spell that could pick up an object at a distance…

I've been trying to figure out any way to use Fetch or Remote Manipulation, but I can't see the time tradeoff being worth it. But here's some notes I made that could be useful for cheat runs:

• Remote Manipulation (skip Honor Jinrai and immediately enter Hall of Truth stairs?)
• Fetch, broken (zap the door in Hall of Truth out of existence and skip all the puzzles)
• Fetch, patched (pickup the third shard without having to go around)
• Selax's bird character ("can fly" attribute allows going over water and lava without difficulty, saves time and damage)
• Selax's teleporter character (immediately pop into the city of interest; maybe modify to have a stairway to each relevant zone?)

Then I also think, "if one were cheating, could you just put a purified crolna in your inventory at the start and end the game when you begin it?" Perhaps @Bryce or @Selax should try this and get a 1 second speed run! 😄

Here's the best I've been able to manage

It's just about 32 minutes. I would argue that an optimal speed run for Cythera is half an hour. I don't think the order can be arranged that much differently, but I could be wrong. The biggest factor is luck. As I mentioned in the last post, Crab Cove, Maayti, and Land's End are unpredictable. Depending on the random placement of enemies and who they choose to target, you can be looking at seconds or many minutes. For comparison, see the difference between the first time I entered Crab Cove and then again after leaving and re-entering.

Charax remains my mortal enemy! 😤 Previously, he froze the game and undid all my efforts. This time, I tried the attacking approach, and it didn't work out at all. I lost about 2 minutes exactly (compare where I was at 29:40 and 31:40). As such, I don't think it's possible to do it without sleeping because there's no reliable way to purify the Crolna until morning. The two minute loss is also why I'm sure a 30 minute run is possible; it's just tricky to get everything right.

Edit: I forgot to mention that @Buzzzzy suggested I use "Attack Weakest" AI instead of Berserk, and he's right, it's much more effective. I can see why the targeting for that script would be much more reliable, but I'm not sure why the other scripts just don't trigger the followers to fight much at all. I also benefitted greatly from Buzzzzy's quest arrangement and the directional hotkey trick he used in his video (shortcut key and direction arrow to perform "look", "take", etc.).

Does an attempt count if it's not completed? 😛

Here's my unsuccessful speedrun

The game froze at the very end when trying to use "Awake" on Charax to get the Crolna purified.

Aside from the issue at the end, I was not dissatisfied with this arrangement of quests. I now agree with Buzzzzy that getting Meleager is a waste of time; he simply doesn't contribute enough. Plus, the more followers you have, the more likely to get hung up waiting to load the next screen.

Crab Cove, Maayti, and Land's End are the three challenging spots, but each one is unpredictable. You can run through one with surprising ease and then get stuck in another for a long time. Things started to go wrong for me around 26:15 when the crabs began to hound me in Maayti, culminating in a confrontation at 27:35 in which I became cornered with little life, magic, or support. In my hurried frenzy to survive, I ordered Timon to heal the very crab I was trying to kill! So anyways... I died somehow. I actually didn't notice at the time because it took a while to register in the game. After that, whenever crabs died, I got the sound effect for my death.

Next attempt will have no Meleager, and I will train on a little more mana to have extra magic on hand. I will also save the healing potion for Crab Cove or Maayti because Timon has enough power to get you across the lava pit without difficulty. It's also important not to forget any steps! After getting the Timeflux book, I forgot to swing by Sabinate for the mushroom at first.

Another thing I wonder about is using the staff to scare off enemies. Unless I'm mistaken, it causes effects like confuse, terror, or paralyze to anything not magic immune. Do you remember @Buzzzzy or @453?

For those curious where the speed run discussions went, those posts were mostly moved to a new speedrun-oriented topic.

Regarding the 20th anniversary livestream, I realized I never updated the final date here. It will be Sept. 13, 8-10pm Central. The stream will be on https://www.twitch.tv/cytheraguides.

To Pallas' points, persuasion is really only useful for Halos it seems. I thought you needed Ake, so I actually was trying as an Explorer. It seems that's not necessary. And I've not seen the method of using Direct Nexus to reposition Alaric. As mentioned above, @453 taught me that you can always reach Alaric just by checking above his bedroom.

I'm curious to try a speed run that is shortest both in realtime and in-game. This means no sleeping and no save/reverting if at all possible. Seeing Buzzzzy fit the murder in Day 1 makes me think Day 2 is completely unnecessary in my layout.

This really is very entertaining! Thanks for the excellent work, Buzzzzy 😄

Wow, Buzzzzy! Spectacularly done! Speeding up game time helps, but your arrangement of quests and trimming out unnecessary parts is brilliant. 👏

I was actually making similar notes last night and trying to cut down time as much as possible. The goal was to arrange as much daytime stuff at the beginning, and then do all the Seldane/Timeflux stuff at night since they aren't influenced by when. I did waste some time — doing more fighting, getting Meleager, and picking up the glowing staff — so it was still coming in around an hour for me. I'll post my rough notes at the bottom in case anyone's curious, but here's the thoughts I had regarding your video:

• Crabs! I agree completely that these are the single biggest problem in a speed run because they're unavoidable at key junctures (land's end, crab cove, maayti). It looks like you had a lot of problems in the cove but expertly got around them in most places. I decided to learn mystic arrow at Pnyx so I could help kill crabs and keep the followers alive.

• I played as an Explorer to have persuasion outright and not have to bother with Neoptolemus, BUT I thought the conversation with Ake was a must to prompt Halos. I've always had issues getting the murder to trigger, but you've demonstrated here that just speaking with his Halos' brother, then Halos, and the back-and-forth between Stentor and Pelagon is enough to do it.

• I also thought you first had to prompt Charax about timeflux to get Itanos to respond to Idomenus, but it seems not.

• It was dark in Crab Cove, so I couldn't tell how you handled the hydra. I was picking up arrows from LKH for this, but does Death Strike work? I thought they're too far away.

• A difference in your order is that you go see Sabinate during the day, whereas I was favoring getting Timon and going straight to Sabinate from Timon's ruins first thing at night. I'm honestly not sure which order is more optimal, but it's clear you get more stuff done on the first day.

• Now that I look at how you handled the murder, I wonder if Day 2 is necessary at all. If the murder can be solved last thing before night, all the rest of what I had in Day 2 could be done overnight except Charax. Perhaps Awake could be used to get Charax whenever he's needed?

• One tip I learned from BW's videos that saves time: Alaric is accessible 24/7. Just move your cursor around in the locked room above his bedroom at night, and you can find him. It saves having to sleep.

• Overall, I came away with the feeling that Cythera is very well organized for a speed run. You can literally do all the main quests in a day, finishing up zones of the island as you go, and then all the other stuff at night when it doesn't matter. Kesh and most of the rest of the game are completely optional. Plus, the Seldane teleporters make getting around to key places very quick. Like I said before, crabs were the trickiest part, and also having to run to the iron mine 2x during the middle of the night.

You have some great suggestions for the livestream, especially about the demo differences. I know we've decided not to do a speed run for the livestream, but it's been really entertaining to discuss. I think I will split the topic out though, just because the speed run discussion is taking a life of its own.

Here's my notes on quest arrangement:

cythera speedrun

Day 1: (as much during day as possible)
explorer for persuasion
omen's test: ring, crate, and bomb
LKH: 
	use bomb to get more and pick up arrow supplies
	get smith's friend, healing, and mage's friend
	talk to hector, learn to cook and make bread, get some food, get hector
swing by Odemia to make Ariadne appear
go to cademia, in comana use bomb to get money, move money and take what's needed, get staff
get meleager
rescue ariadne, take to odemia, get "pipes", talk to ake about "more" (persuasion comes in handy here)
cure plague
talk to glaucus and get kelp
go to Pnyx, learn magic and a handful of spells (direct nexus & arrow)
learn alchemy & prompt for charax
go to charax to get timeflux started
go to kosha, talk to itanos about stentor and idomenus
go to cademia and talk to halos (persuasion again) about ake, kidnapping, and note; give net to stentor if time

Night 1: (do as much stuff that doesn't matter the time overnight)
go see pelagon about being dead
go get timon
go to seldane from ruins and talk to sabinate
tricky part:
	get to mine and get honor jinrai quest
	go south and honor jinrai (use combo of smith friend and timon healing)
	direct nexus and get to mine one more time to learn name bahoudin
direct nexus and talk to magpie to get other half
go to maayti and free it
direct nexus and go to crab cove to get timeflux (also tricky)
if any time left in morning, just sleep a little because nothing else left to do at night

Day 2: (likely but if able to condense day 1, move some things up)
if anything left from day 1, do first, but hopefully not!
go to cademia and solve murder, speak with stentor
go to kosha and play PHJMD on pipes
pelagon should be there (you must have crolna on your person!) so get 4th piece (tricky! careful choosing!)
go to sabinate and get mushroom
take book, mushroom, and kelp to Charax, use distiller on crolna
direct nexus and cure alaric

current estimate ~1 hr. realtime and 1 day, 3 hours in game

@453 said in 20.:

Did you know if you have the awareness aptitude, you can start using it before you've even learned it?

Ah, no wonder you like the rogue so well! That is certainly the best archetype for a speed run then, although I was pondering an explorer simply to have a balance of mana and casting to show some of the magic.

Your notes about the schedules are excellent, and it seems like careful planning can make the game very short. Have you tried a speed run, BW? I'm curious how quickly you could do the full game. I'm betting it'd be pretty quick.

talking to Prusa 200 times (looks at Sely)

Selax and I used to trade off the awful job of talking to Prusa repeatedly until getting that silly book. No joke! It was one of the worst parts anytime we played the game... Neither of us was clever enough to figure out the simple pattern of what she says on what day. You've saved us three hours of stream time right there! 😜

@Buzzzzy that's a great idea about the journal for tracking days! It's actually little features like the journal that would be worth showing, and even though it doesn't take much time itself, you're probably right that we'd lose out on a lot of worthwhile discussion blitzing through everything.

@Pallas-Athene I too was surprised by how much can be done very quickly when playing some yesterday. Selax and I always took time exploring and building characters up, but when I look at the way BW plays the game, she gets basically all the LKH, Odemia, and Catamarca stuff done in one or two visits at the beginning. Plus, you can practically finish the game with next to no fighting, so there's little need to spend time grinding for experience.

I also toyed with the idea of just playing through the whole thing, but I wonder if we'd need closer to 3 hours. I think it'd be good to leave time to look at dialogue and discuss (not sure how long that'd need), but also showing different archetypes and bugs will take time.

I'm not sure about the wait for Charax, but for some reason a couple days comes to mind. I agree that the murder investigation seems pointless since there's no real resolution; everyone just shrugs it off afterward. For what it's worth, the hint book claims it's necessary to get the fourth part of the crolna.

I suppose you could hack the game to make Alaric respond to “time” :)

😛 That would be hilarious! For speed running purposes, I bet Pandora's box could be used to track the gametime counter as well.

@Pallas-Athene said in More Fun Tree of Life Speculation:

To me, the message seems to be a reference to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil more so than the Tree of Life. They are, apparently, different

Good point about the message. I'm not very familiar with Kaballah, but I found an interesting blog at the Kaballah Centre:

Whenever the Torah talks about the Tree of Life, it is talking about the Ten Sefirot – the ten levels of consciousness. The upper three Sefirot are a part of the Tree of Knowledge and are not connected to our physical world. The lower seven Sefirot are a part of the Tree of Life and are connected to our physical world.

So both trees are referenced by the Sefirot. Perhaps another tree was going to be added? Or the message referencing knowledge alludes to that while the "physical" experience would be the Tree of Life?

Notably, their representation of the Sefirot is missing "Da'at". According to this reference:

Generally, da’at is only enumerated among the sefirot when keter is not. This is due to the fact that da’at represents the reflection of (the inner dimension of) keter itself within the realm of consciousness

So in a way, it's an unnecessary addition, but at the same time, it's omission is also relevant given its interpretation as the "Tree of Life".

@Bryce said in More Fun Tree of Life Speculation:

The zone script for LandKing Hall (1403) just does the usual things to configure the music, ambient lighting, etc. The logic for this puzzle is found in the code for the Brazier (113F)

Great find, Bryce! That's an interesting place to handle it, but I suppose there's not many other braziers in the game, and no other puzzles based on them. It looks like the screen flash is definitely intended -- matching the reference to a lightning bolt -- but the "tortuous serpent path that is returned" remains a mystery.

Edit: I found a video discussing the sefirot; at least it has pronunciations... I'm really amused about doing a Kaballah deep dive to figure out how it might tie into Cythera. While most of Cythera's lore references Greek mythology, I'd say Gandreas' has a clear interest in religion, mythology, mysticism, and all things generally associated with belief or spirituality. It's definitely tied into all his old Mac games, and even on the iPhone

And for bonus discussion points, the Sapphire texts!

Sapphire Book of the Crown
Location: Land King Hall, Alaric's private study

As all can be derived from nothing, the Unity of all that exists is the basis for all that exists, and this is the first step from the Infinite to the final expression. This is the first principle of consciousness...

---

Sapphire Book of Wisdom
Location: Abydos, Tavara's workshop

The first step of creation is the raw energy or force, which gives life. It is excitement without known cause, raw and unbridled...

---

Sapphire Book of Understanding
Location: Pnyx, empty room in the southeast corner from the main library

Without the capacity to take form, all is naught, so one must be able to this very abstract reasoning to the results of the raw energy of Wisdom...

---

Sapphire Book of Mercy
Location: Kosha, Itanos' study

It is the creation of form that is the first step across the abyss from the abstract to the concrete, and within this creation of form one can experience feelings of spiritual well-being...

---

Sapphire Book of Power
Location: Cademia, Machaon's workshop

As there is the creation of form, so must there be the destruction of form, just as one gains reasoning about right and wrong, and through that, a true understanding of power...

---

Sapphire Book of Beauty
Location: Prusa carries it

Beauty is the consciousness of consciousness, as expressed by a perspective on life which is Beauty. It is an abstract between force and form...

---

Sapphire Book of Victory
Location: Loose dirt south of Odemia

It is the consciousness of force that is needed to go beyond abstracted consciousness, which can be expressed as emotional feelings about material things, in this last abstraction of force...

---

Sapphire Book of Splendor
Location: Catamarca, hidden under Polydamas bed in the Citadel

The last abstraction of form that yields the consciousness of form. One experiences this with reasoning about material things, which forces that which is into form, but is not the form itself...

---

Sapphire Book of Foundation
Location: Ayrit, Unhayt carries it

The power of dream and imagination is but one step removed from the physical world, making it the foundation for that which is manifest. One can view this as the consciousness of the world.

---

Sapphire Book of the Kingdom
Location: Cademia, Berossus' study in the northeast corner of the Tyrant's Castle

All works are ultimately experienced in terms of physical sensation, and thus physical sensation can be viewed at the final determinant in magical expressions. It is within this physical world that man lives, the matter of the world...

---

Overall, I don't see much connection to the brazier lighting and path to Tree of Life in the texts, although there's some clear references at the beginning and ending. The "first step" as the Crown and then Foundation being "one step removed" and Kingdom is finally "experienced in terms of physical sensation" (teleportation to the tree?).