Basic Guide to Speedrunning CSToK

The following is a basic overview on how to speedrun *Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Treasures of Knowledge*. This guide assumes you know how to complete the game casually (and by heart, ideally) and will therefore primarily refer to deviations from the "casual" route.

First things first, the following should be noted about input-related speedtech:

- Spacebar is the in-game bind for skipping cutscenes and dialogues, which makes the difference between the run being seven minutes and the game taking two hours. Furthermore, holding down the spacebar for the duration of the run allows for all the cutscene and dialogue skips to be precisely as fast as your machine will allow, cutting those seven minutes down to below five.
- The game treats a right-click the same as a left-click, so a well-versed mouser could gain an advantage by executing double-clicks via left- and right-clicking in quick succession (or the other way around). For example, in a scenario where the scene is a close-up inspection by the characters, the optimal way to navigate to the Global Transportation System is to double-click where Hawkins's nose is.
- Aside from spacebar, the primary speedtech for the game is optimal mouse movement. Memorizing the solutions to puzzles is a plus, in this regard.

The rest of this guide will now go through the missions individually. Included at the top of each section is a diagram of actions required to complete the mission divided by in which country they are performed. An arrow from an Action A to an Action B signifies that Action A is a requirement to perform Action B, either because Action B won't spawn until after Action A is performed or attempting Action B before Action A will cause the characters to say something along the lines of "I think we're missing something" and prevent the completion of Action B. *If an action is not in the diagram, then the action is not necessary in order to complete the mission and can be ignored as part of the run.*

# Mission 1

![](/static/blob/qny543zp.png)

The main time save for Mission 1 over the casual route is the complete removal of Japan - everything needed in Kenya will spawn even without getting the audio clue for the "second half of the solution". Note that it is necessary to talk to the bookstore owner in order to spawn the clue analyzer; similarly, it is also necessary to talk to the tour guide in order to spawn the ugali. Refer to the guide on manipulating the Three Rings Puzzle RNG for guaranteeing a friendly puzzle solution.

# Mission 2

![](/static/blob/4zjoglnk.png)

The saleswoman's table has two items needed to complete the mission, but only one is spawned at the start. In order to save a trip to the table, the run can spawn the second item by going immediately to Thailand and talking to the guy with the ripped page (*note that it is necessary to down-arrow after viewing the ripped page in order to spawn the item*). After that, we can go back to Russia and visit the table to grab both the CD and the matryoshka in one trip. From there, everything follows the casual route (minus the unnecessary clues).

# Mission 3

![](/static/blob/1n846weq.png)

This mission has no real deviations from the casual route. Note that it is necessary to analyze the windmill picture in order for the colored sentence note to spawn. A small optimization to note: the mouse will be where it needs to be to click the wolf statue at the top of the next mission when entering the last three notes of the panpipes puzzle.

# Mission 4

![](/static/blob/3nvj08nm.png)

The main quirk of use in Mission 4 is that, strangely enough, the order in which you retrieve the pieces for the carousel puzzle determines the order in which the pieces are presented at the bottom of the screen when solving the carousel puzzle. The optimal order for retrieving the pieces, therefore, is Canada, Indonesia, France, Israel, then South Africa (on the Golden Lion) — that ordering allows for simply dragging up pieces to their slots without having to cross any paths, and also has the added benefit of being in the correct country when retrieving the last piece. Note that it is not necessary to trace the Golden Lion call in order to spawn everything in France, nor is it necessary to inspect the captain's log in order to spawn the piece in Indonesia. Note that it *is* necessary, however, to inspect the painting in France in order to spawn the piece in Israel.

# Mission 5

![](/static/blob/dz4v4kz6.png)

Mission 5 has some room for improvisation in action order. Note that it is not necessary to inspect the Indian earring in order for the ribbon to spawn; it *is* necessary, however, to retrieve the rancher's card from the wall in Egypt in order to be able to call the rancher in Argentina. After grabbing the card, everything can be done in whatever order the runner chooses, as long as Antarctica comes last so that only one trip to Antarctica is needed.

# Mission 6

![](/static/blob/wzxo9dzr.png)

In contrast with the previous mission, Mission 6 is incredibly linear and has little room for cutting corners. Only real "optimization" to note is to ensure to inspect the fireplace upon the first visit to the UK to allow for purchasing the horse brass in the same trip as speaking to the shop agent.

# Mission 7

![](/static/blob/rz28mlz0.png)

Like with Mission 4, there's no need to inspect the captain's log in Mission 7 in order for the door gears to spawn where the Golden Lion hides them; it *is* necessary, however, to talk to the clockmaker in Germany in order for them to spawn. Aside from that, the casual route for this mission stands. Unlike with Mission 4, the gears will appear at the bottom of the puzzle in the same order regardless of the order in which they are retrieved, so there is some room for improvisation here as well.

# Mission 8

![](/static/blob/pzmdqwzk.png)

The most important thing to note about Mission 8 is that it is not necessary to receive the translated instructions in order for the mosaic to spawn in Jordan. As such, after retrieving the key from the UK, a visit to Jordan to inspect the mosaic, followed by inspecting the coat of arms in Spain, will spawn every required action in Mexico, allowing for everything in Mexico to be performed in one trip instead of two like in the casual route (note that it is not necessary to inspect the Gúzman brush in Jordan to spawn the mosaic piece in the display window). The required actions in Canada can also be performed in one trip after completing everything in Mexico (note that we don't need the note from Carmen in France in order to spawn the continents book in Canada), and France can be performed in one trip after Canada so long as the explorer's parchment is inspected in Spain first as well. The last thing to note is to click the dials of the final door before placing gems so that the dead time of waiting for the dials to finish moving can be used productively.

Defeating the RNG of the Three Rings Puzzle

In a standard Any% run of CSToK, only one portion of the game is driven by RNG: the initial configuration of the Three Rings Puzzle at the end of Mission 1. That one bit of RNG alone makes Mission 1 take anywhere from a theoretical 12 seconds to nearly 40 seconds to complete, entirely due to the half a second a single puzzle piece takes to move. It would therefore be ideal to remove the RNG involved therein to level the playing field for runners - this guide documents just how to do that.

The RNG responsible for the initial state generated for the Three Rings Puzzle is driven by two factors: the system timestamp at which the game is started and the number of scene changes performed before arriving at the puzzle door (i.e. the number of times Jules and Hawkins change position). With sufficiently ingrained speedrunning muscle memory, the second factor is practically constant (16, counting both the change into the initial Río state and the change into the puzzle door itself). The first factor is therefore the target of our concern herein.

Fortunately, there are tools available which allow for mocking the system timestamp for a single application such that nothing else outside that executable will experience the potential detrimental effects of manual timestamp manipulation:

- Windows systems: [RunAsDate](http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/run_as_date.html)
- *NIX systems (including macOS): [libfaketime](https://github.com/wolfcw/libfaketime)

With the appropriate tool, the Carmen executable can be launched with a fake system timestamp injected to guarantee a certain Three Rings Puzzle initial state (provided the runner doesn't mistakenly perform an erroneous scene change). Crucially, both indicated tools allow for *freezing* the fake timestamp rather than advancing from a given timestamp, which further guarantees the timestamp used for seeding the game's RNG is always the same between executions.

*NOTE: the Steam install of CSToK is not protected by Steam DRM, which means the executable for the game can be launched without having Steam running, so runners won't need to worry about contending with fake timestamps for Steam.*

As of this writing, the latest record runs use the following timestamp: `1970-01-01 00:03:36`

The above timestamp provides a Three Rings Puzzle which only requires eight moves to complete. The search is currently on to find the mythical timestamp which generates a Three Rings Puzzle which only requires four moves to complete - in the meantime, runners are encouraged to inject the above timestamp for runs as a means of leveling the playing field.

الاسم	المؤلف
Basic Guide to Speedrunning CSToK	jds 1 year ago
Defeating the RNG of the Three Rings Puzzle	jds 1 year ago