[TECHNICAL DETAILS]

Quests for Glory II, originally, was developed by AGD Interactive.  They received a limited license from Sierra to produce and distribute a remake of the original EGA version of the game, provided that they release it for free.

The game was recorded using ZD-Soft Screen Capture, because this game REALLY doesn't like Fraps and cuts the recording down to less than 30 frames a second.  Encoding in Yua stated that an IQ file was not required.

A special thanks goes out to Puri for routing the original game, but also for his commentary and assistance during practice for my RPG Limit Break 2016 run of the marathon.  It was fantastic.  He suggested a time-saving trick using numbers that cut a serious amount of time off of the run.

I also thank God for the little bits of extra time I get where I can work on perfecting my runs of my favorite series.

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[TIMING]

Timing starts when you gain control after the opening dialog from Abdullah.  Timing ends when the Force Bolt spell connects with the brazier in the final room.

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[WHY RUN THE REMAKE?]

Because it is very different from the original EGA.  There are some things that are slower and some things that are faster.  There are also new skips, which make running the remake significantly faster than running the EGA version.  The route is different also, because the requirements for particular items are more diligently guarded by the coders of the game, so items I would purchase immediately in the EGA version require me to wait to purchase to line up the acquistion of other items.

This is a different game.

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[CHARACTER CREATION]

Fifteen points are allocated to buying the Magic skill at the beginning and the rest of my points go into Throwing.

[OPENING]

At the Inn, it is important to set your character to running and to change the speed and difficulty sliders all of the way down.  I also disable the "Silly Clowns" setting, which cuts out particular Easter Eggs that make your character occasionally watch cameos while running through the streets of Shapeir.

[DAY 1]

Unlike the EGA version, there is no "sell beard" miracle glitch to gain the correct currency and amount to complete the run.  Fortunately, a New Game gives more than enough money to make the necessary, and the AGDI remake gives players to option to simplify the layout of Shapeir (at the cost of some special Easter Eggs which don't affect us).

Once at the Money Changer, I exchange my currency and head back to make some purchases.

The first thing I do is buy the lamp.  In a marathon run (1-5), I would wait until Day 5 because the merchant will give you the lamp for free when the Fire Elemental is attacking, but that requires an additional trip.  Of particular note is the time I take to purchase food.  In the EGA version, you do not need additional food because time-skipping at the Inn does not consume your rations.  In this game, you will starve around Day 8 if you do not purchase more rations.

In the Apothecary, I mention incense to get the option to buy incense from the shopkeeper.  This is an instance where having the text parser as an addition saves significant time rather than navigating the menus.  I will type buy rather than clicking, because I type faster.  I also make sure to purchase health pills which I will use late into the run.

On my way back to the Inn, I buy the map, and immediately use it to warp back into the Inn which resets my cursor to movement, saving additional time.

[DAY 5]

The Fire Elemental is straight forward.  A starting Thief can connect with the Fire Elemental once before getting killed, but luckily, it doesn't happen.  The Elemental in the remake appears a less random, so therefore, is a bit more aggressive.  We capture him, but before heading back to the Inn I use the map to head to the Blacksmiths, where I cast Fetch to get the Bellows for the Air Elemental.

[DAY 9]

I make sure I pick up a Cloth Bag, and then head into the Magic Shop.  Here, I use the parser again to get the Foolers Earth rather than navigate the dialog, and buy Levitate, Dazzle and Force Bolt.  In the VGA remake, even with the additional Throwing, hitting the Air Elemental with the Foolers Earth is, as far as I can tell, impossible.  In the original EGA, Throwing dirt into the Air Elemental is much more consistent.

Again, I find that the Air Elemental is far less random, and therefore, much less of a troll.  The Air Elemental single-handedly caused more restarts in my EGA runs than ANY OTHER cause.

[DAY 12]

The first thing is to head back to the Apothecary to get the Burning Powder.  The Burning Powder is the main reason that I put points into Throwing, because the Burning Powder connects everytime when thrown, putting the Earth Elemental down very quickly.  It is only possible for the Earth Elemental to appear in corridors with a end, and I pick this spot because it is easy to move back and forth using the keyboard to find him.  He can appear immediately, but unfortunately he doesn't.  Still, it is an RNG-related cost of about five seconds by my estimations.

[DAY 14]

Water Elemental is about the same.  No surprises.

[RASEIR DAY 1]

This is single-handedly the best thing about the remake.  In the original EGA game, you cannot rest anywhere except in the Inn.  Period.  This means that Raseir is an unavoidable ten minute time-sink.  In the remake, we can use the rest feature to skip all of that, and the ESC key to skip MANY of the cutscenes (such as resting).

I take my time to click the drink Ferrari offers me, because screwing this up costs quite a few seconds trying to fix.  After ignoring Ugarte's offer, I head in to sleep.  This saves about 5 minutes over the EGA version.

[RASEIR DAY 2]

I head out and watch Ugarte get arrested, and give my clothes and travel visa to the Emir's daughter, Zayisha.  I move my mouse near the top to get the clothing and visa out the second I have control again.  I move to the entrance to my room before resting, because Ferrari will want to talk to you if you are not in the immediate doorway.  Also, if you choose not to talk to him, he kills you.  This skips the risk and is faster.  I jam the ESC key to skip the resting cutscene again.

[RASEIR DAY 3]

Once we are arrested we get out of prison quickly.  There are little animations that are skipped by pressing the ESC key repeatedly.

[FORBIDDEN CITY]

I save a few more seconds by pressing the ESC key and skipping Ad Avis' monologue and go right to the part where I can use the mirror.  Inside, pressing the ESC key skips some more movement, but by keeping my mouse near the top of the screen I can immediate pull out the lamp and move.

After a three-second RNG Easter Egg of a man falling, you almost always miss the first log.  You usually miss the first log any way, but I use that time to cast Open on the windy hole and then jump across and head the fire room.

The fire room went perfect, but I know my damage levels are probably critical so I use the Healing Pills to I can immediately fall and hurt myself again because it is faster than casting Levitate to get down.

The only thing I wish for from the Djinni is Healing (not for my health, but for my Magic Points so I can cast more spells) and to Teleport which requires two clicks to make happen.

[BACK AT RASEIR]

Pressing ESC the whole time skips another cutscene and allows you to move immediately.  I run up to the gates and use the Dazzle/Open combo to get inside, using the keyboard to speed up the process of running in.  If I move my mouse to the top of the screen after casting Dazzle, the game hangs until you move it back into the play field, so I have to wait for the text box before bringing up the Open spell.

Inside, there is a new solution that I use in the VGA remake, where you jump down and stab the Khaveen.  This is much, much, much faster than the usual Calm spell and jump, because it solves everything at once.  Inside the next room, I run into Ad Avis, and promptly end the game.  This is much less glitchy than the EGA verison.

[POTENTIAL TO SAVE TIME]

Better handling.  The route is minimalist, so I am confident that will not change.  Thanks, SDA!

[A NOTE ON DOSBOX SETTINGS]

This run was done on the GOG.com settings of the game, but uses an older version of the game that was available on the release. It does not include the patches that Sierra distributed later. The reason for this is a MAJOR glitch that enables the complete disregard of the game's psuedo-copyright protection; the location of the money-changer. I call it "psuedo," because the game is easily completeable even without the earlier version, but doing so if you do not know the route would be very, very frustrating. It would also only add about two minutes or so to the run at max, also adding a very boring series of corridors.

Also, the video output from "Overlay" to "OpenGL" to allow for FRAPS to make the recording.

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[CREDITS]

Of course, I want to thank SDA for hosting such a great service. It is always my first place to check for speed runs, and the community is always super friendly and helpful. No trolls on these forums that I've encountered. :)

I would like to thank Puri, even though we have never spoken, for demonstrating the initial route. I believed this to be the most difficult of all the Quest for Glory games, and he demonstrated that it is in fact it is far from it.

Also, as a minister, I have to give credit to God for giving me a little extra leisure time to practice the series of games I enjoy.

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[A NOTE ON ROUTING; INCLUDING AN IMPORTED GAME]

The Any% category for this game can be accomplished with the (nearly) exact same route with all three classes (and an imported character). The few differences are negligable, and I will note them in the route when they appear (they are rare and unimpressive, in my opinion). Therefore, there is no reason to submit multiple class runs like there was in Quest for Glory I or the others, except for perhaps playthroughs showcasing class specific solutions. That would be a different category, however, as I am confident that this is a fail-safe speedrun once the route is understood.

Where this might be VERY different is in an "Anthology" run, where you run from the first Quest for Glory game through the last, importing your character as you go. That might require some additional strategies, but as Magic solves nearly all problems easily, I imagine it would not amount to much.

The rest is typing speed and mouse/keyboard/hotkey control.

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[SCENE-BY-SCENE COMMENTARY]

CHARACTER CREATION:
As I choose the Thief, I am making sure that I put 5 points into Magic, which gives me more than enough Magic Points to make it through the game as well as access to nearly every spell from the first game. The rest is put into Throwing for two express reasons: Earth Elemental and the final encounter with Ad Avis.

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[DAY ONE:]
As the game starts, I am spamming the NumPad "+" key to increase the game speed. My next actions are to press F8 to change the flow of time to the fastest, stand up, change my movement to run, and use the mouse to make sure I exit correctly. Quite a bit of the control in the this game is the balance between keyboard actions and mouse clicks. The mouse ALWAYS returns to the lower right side of the screen after every screen change. This makes some strategies unusable, and it is a matter of learning what is fastest/most consistent.

Skipping dialog successfully is another thing I did not expect to be such a burden. There are times where typing letters seems to skip dialog SLIGHTLY faster, and others where the "Enter" key is required or even faster.

My first destination is to the Magic Store. In the center of town, the route I take is very specific. There are more dialog skips if you move around the other side of the fountain, and when the screen transitions to the other side of the courtyard, pressing "Up" and moving will pretty much guarantee you will automatically enter the Magic Store.

**This room is the sole reason why the earlier version is used. There is a quest from Keepon for a whirl of the Dervish's Beard. He buys the beard for 15 Dinars. In the earliest version, however, you can "Sell Beard" even if you do not have it, as many times as you need to. Normally, you have to navigate the city to reach the Money Changer to exchange your Gold Coins to the correct currency. This is gamebreaking in a traditional run, but it is far from gamebreaking a speedrun, as exchanging even the starting game's money for Dinars gives you enough to purchase all the required items. Also, I believe this is the only version that allows you to ask for the "Fooler's Earth" which can be used in place of dirt to solve the Air Elemental problem.**

I "Sell Beard" six times to get the required amount to make all of my manditory purchases. (6x15=95) The required list of the items are:
- 1 Map (1 Dinar)
- 1 Lamp (15 D)
- Dazzle (25 D)
- Levitate (Optional - See Air Elemental - Only "Sell Beard" four times, but not necessarily faster. This is a safe strategy that only costs one-three seconds in "Optimal RNG Land.")
- Incense (0.7 D)
- Cloth Bag (0.5 D)
- An extra waterskin (1 D)
- 2 Daggers (10 D)

After make the purchases around the center courtyard, I head back to get the Map which enables fast travel. I come back at night to the cast Fetch on the Bellows as well. "CTRL+C" automatically puts "cast " into the text-parser, eliminating a few key strokes/half-second of quick typing. After this, we rest to day six.

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[DAY SIX: FIRE ELEMENTAL]

This is technically doable on Day Five, but I find the Fire Elemental a bit more aggressive/faster on Day Six, so I use this. As you exit, it is good to be typing already. You may begin to spell something incorrectly, but more than likely, this will keep you alive. On the fastest speed, the Fire Elemental is less likely to automatically kill you this way. With this amount of health, if we suffer three hits, we are dead. If we suffer two hits, we are out of alignment with the northern door and are pretty much as good as dead.

The rest is fast typing and a Map-Warp back to the Inn to accelerate to Day Nine.

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[DAY NINE: AIR ELEMENTAL]

This is doable a number of different ways, but the safest by far (and not even the slowest) is to cast Levitate in the middle and "drop dirt" (Fooler's Earth) into the Air Elemental when it is EXACTLY below you. I use "drop dirt" ahead of time so I can simply press the spacebar and nail him with ease.

The alternative/potentially-faster method is to use your Throwing ability to "throw dirt" into the Air Elemental. It is extremely inconsistent, moderately difficult to target because of its movements, and rarely works and does not seem linked to your Throwing skill. I used an Imported Character with maxed out a Throwing score, and had the same level of consistency as a Wizard with Throwing at 50. If you could A) not miss, B) get the dirt to stick on the first throw, C) do it fast enough that he is not at the bottom of the screen, it is the fastest method.

Otherwise, the Levitate spell is the preferred method, as staying in the air does not drain your magic, and there is no danger of falling at the top like the Magic Rope has.

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[DAY TWELVE: EARTH ELEMENTAL]

The Thief has the option of purchasing "Burning Powder" from the Apothecary on this day, which instantly kills the Earth Elemental when thrown. The Thief cannot buy it beforehand.

**The Wizard is expected to use Flame Dart to kill him, which does not add much time and carries no risk of running out of Magic Points as long as no other spells are cast before the encounter.**

It is possible for the Earth Elemental to appear in the first tunnel, which saves a few seconds. The reason my starting points were put into Throwing was so I can hit the Earth Elemental as soon as he appears. It IS possible to miss at lower scores, which is VERY annoying.

I "get earth" after it has fallen to finish off the elemental, and head immediately for the Inn and Day Fourteen.

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[DAY FOURTEEN: WATER ELEMENTAL]

I have never died here once. I am not sure it is possible unless you REALLY do not know the route.

You can go to get the Katta Pin, but this is actually slower and unnecessary. After this, we are resting our way to Raseir.

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[RASEIR, DAY ONE]

Raseir is, to put it concisely, one long 10-minute "auto-scroller," in a sense. As long as you finish the requirements within the excessively generous amount of time, all you can do is wait to make it to the next day. You cannot rest to speed things up, and screen transitions do not hasten the process.

You have to answer "yes" to the Captain, and then enter the Inn. Sit down with Signor Ferrari, order any drink ("sling" is fast and feels most natural of the three to type quickly), and drink it. You do note have to listen to Ugarte, just stand up and begin the waiting process.

The required total wait time once you enter Raseir to when you can sleep is about 4 minutes and 30 seconds. You are able to stand in the doorway and the transition will happen automatically. All we have to do... is stand still for about three-minutes.

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[RASEIR, DAY TWO]

It is about 7 minutes and 30 seconds until the time we can rest at the Inn to transition to Day Three, and what we need to do only takes up about a minute and a half to two minutes. What this means, is that even if there are mistakes made in hallway transitions, I could decide to take a stroll to the palace and it would still not be any slower. Also, and this is important, the speed of the day/night cycle does not slow down when you decrease the speed. Whether you are on the fastest game speed or the slowest game speed, it will take about 7:30 to turn to night as long as "F8" is set to the fastest.

This is good new, because we have to cut through a door in a corridor which is just about the hardest thing in the game, and utterly impossible to do without sheer luck on the fastest speed. After watching Ugarte get captured, I head down the hall and battle with the door. Remember, as long as I am back to the Inn by the 7:30 or so marker, there is no time loss. It might not be pretty, but it is still just as fast (hence the "auto-scroller" description).

After giving up my spare clothes and my Visa, I head back to the inn for a nice, very much longer wait than Raseir Day One. (It's quite boring, and about six-minutes long.)

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[RASEIR, DAY THREE]

HERE is where things go back to normal speedrun pacing. Upon exiting, you are taken to prison. Once inside, it is easy to escape. You can show the Katta in there with you the Pin, supposing you received it, but doing so initiates another dialog later that sucks up about five to ten seconds of time. So we are going to leave him to rot.

I cast Open on the door, "get item" to retrieve my things, and then "search passage" to find the exit and automatically leave. If you "search exit" before getting your items first, the game will prompt you to collect your items (which are necessary). Then you will have to type, "enter passage" which takes extra moments to type in. The route I take back is pretty much set, and Ad Avis (the Big-Bad) comes in to mind-control/flirt with me.

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[FORBIDDEN CITY]

Once Ad Avis quits yammering, I "use mirror" that I received from the woman to open the door and descend into the depths. Once I have control again, you need to light the lamp containing the Fire Elemental. Walking right shows us yet another puzzle.

You have to jump on the log, and quickly (but accurately) jump off on the shore. If you jump too soon or too late, your hero (like an idiot) jumps into the water. On the otherside is one of those places where different classes can handle it differently, but can actually use the same ability. I use the "pick rock" skill to close the air-hole, as using Magic could leave me without the necessary Magic Points at the end to win the game. I weighed this against typing "wish for health" once you get the Djinni, and decided the keystrokes are probably a little slower in speed. However, Wizards are able to cast "open" on the rocks to ironically close the air-hole. Fighters are able to force it shut. After that, it is a matter of navigating the admittedly tretcherous walk way to the even more tretcherous lava room.

I slow down the game using the "=" button to reset it to standard and then NumPad "+" twice to get it to a manageable speed. The lava room continually spits fire which can kill me (and has in previous attempts as I was learning the route).

After this, I could float down with the Levitate spell which I know, but falling is easily faster and requires nothing but gravity (as opposed to extra keystrokes and the down-arrow once the spell is cast). If you took too much damage in the lava room, however, this fall can kill you. Three burns in the "safe" number.

When you approach the door, the answer is "Suleiman." The basic rules of English grammar ("I" before "E" except after "C") do not apply in the lands of Shapeir and Raseir. This is actually how I remembered the pattern, as I have spelled it "Sulieman" many times and had to retype it. It was more difficult than you might think, especially as someone who is a graduate student writing many papers.

Avoid all the treasure, get the ring, and "wish for teleport" twice to get back to Raseir.

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[RASEIR PALACE]

If you saved the Katta, he annoying eats up extra seconds here. Because we left him, we are able to march to the front door. Cast Dazzle (the sole reason we bought it) and then Open to get inside. The Thief is supposed to go up the balcony, to a very much long, tedious and more difficult victory against Ad Avis. We will definitely NOT be doing that, as there is no way any route that includes that will be faster.

Once on the balcony, cast Calm to make the Captain go away. Cast Open on the door, and then "jump" down. You can Levitate, but it takes longer, obviously. Run into the door to the final showdown.

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[AD AVIS AND IBLIS]

Once inside, you can press "CTRL+E" to automatically type "escape" in the parser for you. It is important to run to that side of the room, because you need to knock the brazier on to Ad Avis. Hit the brazier from the other side eliminates the brazier and does not kill Ad Avis. This is the reason why we bought two Daggers from the Weapon Shop, as you cannot throw your last Dagger.

Speed is REALLY important here, and you will see a hesitation at the end. Do I risk a hit from the spell that will probably kill me, or attempt to throw the dagger at Ad Avis faster? Once you have committed to throwing the Dagger, however, you have to go with it, and it works. It was very close though.

This room is supposed to be very difficult, but have a number of ways to solve the puzzle. It was pretty well designed, in my opinion. Even if you are a Wizard with abyssmal Throwing ability, you can still kill Ad Avis the way the Fighter is expected to, which involves running through a toppled brazier for the win. That is actually the safest way, but not the fastest. Even still, had I missed with my Daggers, doing it the "Fighter" way is only about three seconds slower. Not exactly run-killing, in my estimation.

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[AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT]

Tighter typing and movement, mainly, in my estimation. This run is beatable, but I would say this run is also very solid or else I would not have submitted it. Perhaps a perfect-throw-RNG Air Elemental would speed it up by another five or so seconds, but I am not sure that sub-19 is possible outside of TAS (which I would LOVE to see of ANY Quest for Glory game; make it happen, TAS-world).

Of course, if there is a major skip that I missed/am unaware of, that could do it. But I am unsure there is any additioanl glitch or strat that could knock off a minute's worth of time outside of tighter controls. The VGA remake that came out a couple of years ago, which was spectacularly and professionally done, might be able to pull this off, as you are able to rest in Raseir in that version and thus cut out about nine minutes worth of standing.

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[CONCLUDING REMARKS]
I was a little disappointed upon realizing that all the routes are going to pretty much be carbon-copies. I thought this was going to take me much longer because of it.

In contrast, I am amazed at the amount of thought that went into the game because of that same disappointment; you are TRULY able to play however you want. If your initial attempt doesn't work, there is another way to squeak out victory. There really is not a situation that arises before Raseir where you can get yourself killed without a way out. Quest for Glory I had MANY instances of this (Baba Yaga and the Mandrake Root, the Brigand Leader and the Dispel Potions). This game encourages the "never say die" attitude, and I love it.