Greetings! I'm a brand new speed runner. I was inspired by the latest AGDQ and decided to start speed running with an old game from my childhood. The Yukon Trail! (another exciting product from MECC)

I have been having a lot of run running this game, and I've honestly made quite a bit of progress. Like, a lot of progress. Like, world record progress. But something has come up which has me wanting to reach out to the community. (I know it's small community but there are at least a few of us!)

By far the single biggest time save on my runs as compared to the current record holders, is loading times. If you watch any of the record runs you will notice that every time they go to a new screen there's 2-3 seconds of loading. My game does not do that, it just instantly loads the next screen. I have not timed it out, but there's probably around 1:15 of savings just from that loading time difference.

I was wondering if this was a known thing? Am I somehow using a "wrong" version of the game/software that is giving me an edge? As far as I can tell I have done what all the online forums have said, I'm just running the game on windows 3.1 through DosBox.

So yeah, I just wanted to get clarity in case I'm doing something wrong. I'm really excited to show everyone all the new stuff I have discovered. I have found some new routing, some skips, and some better strats. I think it's really cool stuff. My best recorded time right now is a 7:27:41.

Before I posted my run for review I wanted to see if I needed to change anything with how I'm doing it (because of the loading issue, or lack thereof). If I do need to change I will before submitting, and if not I will put up my run!

Thank you!

That's a real good question. I've never delved into dosbox too much but seems like it's runtime is based on your personal pc. Oh well.

Until people care a whole bunch or someone figures stuff out further I'm gonna just say it's all the same. If you're running dosbox that's what everyone else used too.

If anyone is super interested in digging into the minutia feel free though. For now it all stands as legit imo

That's a real good question. I've never delved into dosbox too much but seems like it's runtime is based on your personal pc. Oh well.

Until people care a whole bunch or someone figures stuff out further I'm gonna just say it's all the same. If you're running dosbox that's what everyone else used too.

If anyone is super interested in digging into the minutia feel free though. For now it all stands as legit imo

Personally, I set the current WR on a website-hosted copy of the game. I'm too much of a bibby-babby to figure out Dosbox, but I'm sure that's something that could be substantial in terms of faster times. I doubt the game is demanding enough to have wildly different load times on peoples' computers. That said, I'd love to see how this game can be broken down further.

Well I'm glad to hear I'm not doing anything wrong, haha!

I have actually written up a step by step guide to downloading, installing, and setting up everything needed to run the game exactly how I'm running it (almost no loading times). I'm not sure if that's something that can be posted here or not... but if anyone wants the guide let me know!

Shogun I would love to see you running the game with some of the new strats! Everyday This run gets more fun with all the new tech. NickDoane is right now reviewing my 7:13 run, and I have actually found new stuff that will drop that time down by another good bit.

Also... I have found something really cool. Like blow the doors off this run, we will probably need a new category, type cool. I am still learning what all can be done with this skip, but with it we can literally skip an entire travel section. Once I have it all together I will post some details and a video.

I hope more people get into this game! I know it's old, and not well known, and needs dos to use, but wow has it turned out to be fun.