RNG
This guide aims to document how the important RNG sections in the game work and when outcomes are decided. The when is important, if you are trying to manipulate the outcomes via ScummVM quicksaves. The closer to the RNG roll you can save your game, the more quickly you can retry.
- Jungle Rodent
- Plato's Dialog
- Team: Trottier Finger Guessing
- Fists/Wits: Algiers City Chase
- Team: Grocer
- Wits: Monte Carlo City Chase
- Wits: Ballon Ride
- Team: Submarine
- Atlantis Maze
- Atlantis Lava Puzzle
- Miscellaneous
Jungle Rodent
As soon as you arrive in Tikal a dice roll (0-5) decides in front of which jungle path the rodent spawns.
When Indy walks close enough to shoo it away, a coin toss decides what happens next. On Heads, there is another 0-5 roll to give the animal a new path to walk to. On Tails, what happens depends on which path the rodent is standing in front of at that moment:
- Rodent walks straight to path 3
- Rodent walks straight to path 3
- Rodent walks straight to path 3
- Roll 0-5 to decide new destination
- Roll 1-3 to decide whether the rodent walks to 5, 0 or 1
- Roll 1-3 to decide whether the rodent walks to 0, 1 or 2
Plato's Dialog
The location of Plato's dialog is decided when Costa says: "You've got a DEAL, mister!".
First the game pulls three names out of a hat. There are five possible ones: Ashkenazy, Dunlop, Pearce, Sprague and Ward. Then it attaches those names randomly to the three locations where you can find a collection at the college: the attic chest, the toppled bookcase and the wax cat.
Lastly it rolls a 3-sided die to decide which of the locations contains the dialog.
The contents of the dialog are generated when you first look inside the book OR when you leave the college after picking a path, whichever happens first.
Team Path: Trottier Finger Guessing
Outside the hotel the game rolls 0-8 every 0.6s and if it's a 0, Trottier appears.
The dice roll for how many fingers he is holding up happens AFTER you pick a number and Sophia says e.g. "One.". There is always a 20% chance that your guess is correct. It does not matter which number you pick.
Fists/Wits Paths: Algiers Chase
When you enter the bird's eye view of the city streets, a dice roll decides the number of random locations the servant will walk to.
For the Fists path, this is a coin flip, that decides between 1 or 2 destinations. For the Wits path, it is a d4 roll that decides between 5 to 8 random destinations.
The destinations can be (almost) any random coordinates on the screen. Whenever the servant reaches one of the destinations, he will stand there for a random amount of time between 0.3s and 1.6s. This wait time can be interrupted early by walking close to him.
Once the servant reaches his final random destination, a dice roll (0-4) will decide which of Omar's possible house locations is the correct one and he will make his way towards it. When he reaches it, Indy needs to be in a range of 37 or less (see picture).
Team Path: Grocer in Algiers
As soon as the dialog options appear on screen when you talk to the grocer for the first time, two 0-3 dice rolls happen and decide which gift he is looking for.
Omar hands you the items in this order as well. Left to right, top to bottom.
Wits Path: Yet Another Monte Carlo Map
The corner with the stone is decided when you enter the car crash scene. The stone is never on the site of the car crash.
Wits Path: Balloon
You always start in sector 1. Sub position is decided when you arrive on this screen. It is never in sector 1 or 4.
Team Path: Submarine
The air lock location is decided when you press Esc to skip out of the world map view when you first enter the sub.
Atlantis Maze
An overview of what is randomized (and what isn't). Randomization happens when you first enter the maze.
Room occurences based on 100k generated mazes.
A few notable outlier rooms.
Lava Room Manip
There is one way to manipulate the layout of the maze. If you immediately (first possible frame!) leave back into the air lock, after you initially enter the maze, you interrupt the shuffling process, that is going on in the background. This has the effect, that the cup room and the lava room will always appear behind the same entrances:
This is probably not very useful - if not detrimental - for the Fists and Wits paths, because the lava room is so far out of the way. For the Team path this manipulation should be very useful, because since you do not need to enter the lava room at all, you won't need to worry about the far out-of-the-way entrance in the SW.
To be precise about the timing window: If you leave the maze again on the first frame possible, both rooms will be manipulated. If you are one frame late, only the lava room is manipulated. If you are two frames late, no manipulation happens.
Atlantis Lava Puzzle
Layout is decided when you first enter the hall.
You can't move during the decorative lava splashes and they happen not just when you make a tile disappear, but also randomly every now and then.
There are two other patterns, but they can only show up when you reset the board after a failed attempt and that should never happen.
List of Miscellaneous Rolls
- Which cat is which in the college's cat room is decided when you skip the intro cutscene
- Trottier's "test question" about Atlantis is chosen right before he asks it
- Team: Trottier's correct answers for Sophia during the seance (other than the number of fingers) are decided outside when he tells Indy about the first one
- The location of the Sahara dig site is decided when you arrive on the bird's eye view of the desert (via balloon or camel)
- Fists/Team: Which pair of statues at the Crete dig site is correct is determind when you enter the screen
- Fists: Which pit you find Sophia in is decided when Indy says "Scratch one Nazi." after pushing the stone slab
- Team: Behind which wall you find the secret door is determined when entering the room after the one where Indy boosts Sophia up through a hole
- Fists/Wits: The location of the Thera expedition gets rolled when you take the path away from the docks for the first time
- Fists: The correct entrance during the diving sequence is decided when we cut back to the underwater scene after Kerner cuts off the air supply
- The layout of the final stone spindle puzzle is rolled together with the lava puzzle pattern
