: I'll let the engine experts answer your questions with more aplomb than me.
: But every action in Marathon is determined (predetermined) by the player's
: keystrokes. That's why a saved film (keystroke file) will always play back
: the game's action in exactly the same way. It's akin to those automatic
: pianos which use a mechanical drum to play the notes. It plays back the
: music exactly the same way every time.
: On a side note and taking this to its logical conclusion there must be a
: perfect set of keystrokes to play the perfect game of Marathon. Much akin
: to the concert pianist who strives to play that perfect concerto. For the
: Vidmaster this is the holy grail.
: Cheers
: Hamish
Don't some monster actions depend on a (P)RNG? If so, the saved film would also store the seed for that. There might be a perfect game for every unique seed, though. If so, what type of number is used for the seed value? What's the word size on the relevant processors? Multiply that by 72 (or 74, counting co-op levels from Infinity) and you get the number of unique perfect games.
