Now that I'm running the game more consistently, I've noticed that I kept getting the same starting positions on the clock handles, and the same melody on the pan flute minigame, things which I assumed were completely unpredictable. This worried me at first, because random number generation could be tied to hardware/emulation method.

After doing some experimenting, I managed to consistently get the same flute melody on both VMWare and PCEMU when performing the same sequence of actions. It appears the game's pseudorandom number generation is actually quite consistent, which opens the door for RNG manipulation.

From initial experimentation, here are the game features I believe rely on RNG and could be manipulated or predicted to some extent:

• The initial combination above the secret door
• The initial position of the clock handles
• The melody to play in the flute minigame
• The order in which wires must be burnt to blow up the dynamite
• The sequence of carts produced in the factory

Here are the mechanics that seem to heavily rely on RNG and may ruin attempts at RNG manipulation:

• Animal movement
• Woodlouse generation and movement
• Asteroid minigame
• Woodlouse minigame

This would explain why it took me so long to notice that I could get consistent RNG on the flute minigame: I had to do the exact same sequence of actions in roughly the same amount of time on all the pages with animals prior to it.

I will experiment some more to determine if my assumptions are correct, and reply to this thread with any insight gained.