Photosensitivity Warning. Watch the alternative encode below and adjust to a slower speed if need be:
Riven: The Sequel to Myst also known as Riven (1997) these days is an expansion of the first title.
A title so big it came in multiple CDs 'til its DVD release.
Best Ending is achieved where you capture Gehn and rescue Catherine.
The stuff
- ScummVM - v2.8.0 (jammy)
- Honestly, I should've made this on 23.10 just so I can go (mystic)
- libTAS v1.4.5
- Riven: The Sequel to MYST
- All languages will sync (Validated; English, Japanese & Italian).
- The RedOrb release should also sync as a note, but I have not validated that.
- The same apology note to the Judge and the Publisher/Encoder.
To get the important part out of the way, how do we go about dumping this?
Dumping from frame 0 will result in an audio only encode.
Dumping with a custom configuration will result in a garbled video feed.
Dumping, after starting the movie (so from frame 1) will dump the TAS correctly.
As a note, due to the special way ScummVM has to be encoded with Myst & Riven the first frame is missing.
Add a blank frame in post if you want it to be accurate.
video.trim(0,36) + \
video.trim(37,109).AssumeFPS(10, true).ResampleAudio(44100).ChangeFPS(60) + \
video.trim(110,460) + \
video.trim(461,621).AssumeFPS(10, true).ResampleAudio(44100).ChangeFPS(60) + \
video.trim(622,862) + \
video.trim(863,989).AssumeFPS(10, true).ResampleAudio(44100).ChangeFPS(60) + \
video.trim(990,1169) + \
video.trim(1170,1193).AssumeFPS(10, true).ResampleAudio(44100).ChangeFPS(60) + \
video.trim(1194,1838) + \
video.trim(1839,2057).AssumeFPS(10, true).ResampleAudio(44100).ChangeFPS(60) + \
video.trim(2058,2407) + \
video.trim(2408,2546).AssumeFPS(10, true).ResampleAudio(44100).ChangeFPS(60) + \
video.trim(2547,2696) + \
video.trim(2697,3100).AssumeFPS(10, true).ResampleAudio(44100).ChangeFPS(60) + \
video.trim(3101,8644) + \
video.trim(8645,8667).AssumeFPS(10, true).ResampleAudio(44100).ChangeFPS(60) + \
video.trim(8668,8770) + \
video.trim(8771,8785).AssumeFPS(10, true).ResampleAudio(44100).ChangeFPS(60) + \
video.trim(8786,8944) + \
video.trim(8945,9031).AssumeFPS(10, true).ResampleAudio(44100).ChangeFPS(60) + \
video.trim(9032,9332) + \
video.trim(9333,9421).AssumeFPS(10, true).ResampleAudio(44100).ChangeFPS(60) + \
video.trim(9422,28079+300).fadeout(60)
Oh yeah, the ending song goes for longer, no idea how long so uh... 👍
Setting up ScummVM
Everything is left on default settings, except for one bit. Keymap.
Two extra inputs have been bounded, this is to copy the digital release where diagonal clicks are set to Numpad 7 & 9.
For the sake of those that have a 10keyless I set it to standard 7 & 9.
ScummVM version choice
So the release on Steam is v2.1.0, but I'm using the latest version for a simple reason. Accuracy.
Before the latest release of ScummVM, Riven had a major bug
with a code sequence, where the code can be manipulated to 1,2,3,4,6.
Obviously this means a faster code, but this isn't correct to what was originally released. I personally wanted to have the actual combination to be that of what's representive of an original release, that best code is 2,11,12,16,17.
Drastically different in terms of time when compared to a TAS made with that ScummVM error in mind.
There's also a ladder glitch that hasn't worked on any newer version of ScummVM, but this is minor in comparison to codes.
Code Sequences
So there's two important code sequences that are found through this TAS, to be fast for a TAS.
One's refered to as "Dome Code" where the optimal would be what's mentioned above if using an inaccurate version of ScummVM but here we want 2,11,12,16,17.
The second is refered to as "Prison Code" having the same number for 5 values is optimal 2 frames per input. So 11111/22222/33333 is the fastest code.
And the last code is "Telescope Code" there's no speed here, you click and hit escape to skip repeatable. Gelly provided a funny same digit code, but unfortunately one of the previous codes didn't work for some reason, and I should probably tell them what code that generated but I forgot until I wrote this sentence out... whoops.
Special Thanks
- Gelly - Without their assistance in dealing with the RNG the fastest codes wouldn't have been found.
- Jaffra - For both their World Record run which helped with any confusion I had, or ideas that I didn't consider, and talking to during the creation of the TAS.
- Zaustus - Their speedrun guide was very helpful at explaining things in a zipless guide.
- Floogal - Pointing out my 34 frames of derp that I left behind.
- The Myst Community for answering any of my dumb questions that I had during the making of this TAS.
CasualPokePlayer: Movie syncs perfectly with Steam release (it does not with the Red Orb release, I checked). Can't find any obvious mystakes with optimizations here. Seems to be a perfect fit for Standard.
For future playback, standard ScummVM steps must be taken. ScummVM must be launched once outside of libTAS, and the game folder from the Steam install should be selected for adding a new game. Extra keymaps should be set at this stage as instructed by the annotations. For launching ScummVM within libTAS, the command line option riven-1 should be used (Steam release ID).
Just a quick aside, if you only have one Riven install, only riven should suffice.
