Big Sean Jan 17, 2010





Princey posted: Looking forward to this. I think the last I heard about IVAN was that it was nigh-impossible to win because of the way the game scaled.



I've won before, having said that I keep being killed at the moment. Second death was to the big plant that guards the exit of the UT. The damage:







I was a little careless with my wands which caused me to use all my troll blood (healing) and then I got mobbed by the lesser plants the big plant summons and that was that.



Third run, still alive. Now with lore and strategy content.



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IVAN stands for something in latin that means a long road to death (or soemthing like that). Supposedly, it was designed to be unwinnable. It is actually entirely winnable, but fairly challenging, in particular because unlike most other roguelikes the game is constantly trying to kill you and it's sneaky about it. Everybody playing crawl knows vault:8 (or vault:5 now) in crawl is a tough level. In IVAN, you probably didn't know that eating a stale banana will make your character drunk (invisibly other than an initial message) and if you subsequently pray there is a chance you will pray to the wrong god who might do things like destroy all your equipment. The game will also repeatedly spawn out of depth monsters that will murder you, even when you are many hours into the game. For the purposes of this LP, I will try to kill all of them, including the uniques, but no promises on success.



The "story line" in IVAN is that you are a slave, who is offered your freedom in return for defeating a giant evil frog at the bottom of the gloomy cave. Killing that frog and returning his head to the high priest is one way to win. There are (not very secretly) deeper levels of the gloomy cave however, and if you explore them you may find other, more challenging ways to win.



The beginning:











You start as an unarmed slave in the beginning town which has a few things of interest, in particular a shop selling bananas (i.e. food). It also has a sumo wrestler, but we will return for him later. For now, I start by jogging around on the world map to safely raise my agility a little bit, buy some bananas and eat them for food, and then equip the banana peels as weapons and head out to the underwater tunnel (first dungeon) with my trusty puppy.











In the second post my agility can be seen to have risen to 12 from the world map running. Normally it would be 14, but each character has a hidden "weak" and "strong" stat. The weak stat levels up slowly and the strong stat levels up quickly. In this character's case, the weak stat is apparently agility, which isn't great because agility is your speed stat, but I'm just going to roll with it. Best case is always that charisma is weak stat because shop prices don't really matter; but c'est la vi. I may be able to guess later on what my strong stat is but for now I don't know. Best case would be intelligence.



Entering the underwater tunnel ("UT"), which is the first dungeon:







My first interesting find is a fir quarterstaff +3. Wooden quarterstaffs are terrible, but this is +3 which is actually pretty good because it means its accurate (because its light) and does pretty good damage because of the enchantment. I was expecting this staff to probably be the best weapon I would find in UT, but then only a few steps later...







This is a REALLY aggressive weapon, and would normally be a solid mid-game choice, so is great to find so early because it will help with the plant boss at the end of the UT. This weapon is broken (like literally, not like it is OP), because IVAN generally spawns powerful equipment broken, but we will hopefully find a scroll of repair so we can fix it. The reason why this weapon is good is not just the +3 enchantment, but also because it is made of meteoric steel. Why that matters merits a short detour on IVAN's material system, which is fairly unique among roguelikes.



In IVAN, everything is made out of a material. Each material has underlying weight, strength and flexibility properties that effect not only how heavy it is, but also how much damage it does, how accurate it is, how easy to break, etc. Meteoric steel is essentially an upgraded version of steel and is mid-tier, but that is good for the start. A lot of winning IVAN is getting better material weapons.







A scroll of change materials is a great early drop (they are very rare, and one of my personal "ascension kit" items). I will now try extra hard not to get killed because this is a lucky early drop that I otherwise might have to burn a wish on later because even if it is not an essential item it is at least a very valuable one. As the name implies, this scroll allows me to change items into any material of my choosing, so long as I have the intelligence to support it. Better materials require higher intelligence, which is the reason intelligence is such an important stat. I won't be "sci-talking" in this game as a personal conduct (wherein one can train intelligence by speaking to certain creatures subject to certain other conditions), so raising intelligence will be more difficult.







My equipment by the end of the first floor of the UT. +1 Iron gauntlets and bronze chain mail are reasonably good finds, and I am hoping to find a scroll of repair for my meteoric steel halberd +3, which will be a significant upgrade to my fir quarterstaff +3.







I've fixed my halberd and am wielding it. Somewhat ironically, I find a broken meteoric steel war hammer +3 on the ground. Would normally be important but doesn't matter here for obvious reasons. I pick it up to repair and sell later.







I get caught in a bear trap but free myself. In my first game in this LP, the beartrap was made out of meteoric steel and took off my leg, which led fairly quickly to my demise. Here I am less unlucky and the beartrap is made out of iron, so I escape without much issue.







I've used to a pick-axe to dig out the wall where I am standing, which reveals the entrance to UT:4. We won't be going here for a while because it is an off-branch (i.e. doesn't lead to the exit) that is filled with dangerous crystal golems that would eat my lunch right now. We will be back later to kill them and take their glowing crystals (which are useful as an unbreakable lightsource).







Flaming swords are decent weapons because of the extra unblockable fire damage and because they are unbreakable light sources. I'm not going to be using this sword as a weapon, but I will pick it up to keep monsters from using it and so I can sell it later. Notice that it has also spawned broken, per IVAN's aforementioned habit of spawning good items broken.







My equipment by the end of UT:2. The ring of fire resistance is good, as fire resistance is a must have against the kamikaze dwarves in the gloomy cave. Ring of teleport control is a nice to have.







A look at my weapon experience. As your character fights in IVAN, he gets better with both the weapon type (swords, hammers, etc.) and the specific weapon you are using, which causes more damage (and possibly more accuracy, not sure here). I'm standing on a dead zombie, which is a common enemy but not dangerous unless they pick up a powerful weapon or give you leprosy, which is annoying because it causes your limbs to fall off, which is bad.







The plant boss of the UT. I haven't been showing most of the monsters I've been fighting so far because they have just been trash kobolds, zombies, etc. The big plant hits pretty hard, constantly spawns smaller plants so you can't rest to heal and has a lot of health. He also sits on top of the exit. Notice that the game has given me a special danger message, which it will sometimes do vs. powerful monsters. Vs. extremely powerful monsters the game will sometimes panic your character, preventing you from fighting, which is less helpful.



Beating the big plant is doable in most games but the means will vary depending on what has dropped. If you have a wand of teleportation, you can just send him elsewhere but he will keep spawning small plants at a distance so you will probably want to deal with him eventually. In my case, I have a wand of lightning so I zap him once with that, then zap myself with my wand of haste and go after him with my meteoric steel halberd.







This strategy isn't working great, and you can see here I am almost dead. The issue is I don't have a lot of armor. Fortunately, I do have some healing potions (healing liquid / troll blood) so I heal up. and re-enter melee.







Eventually the plant goes down ("is brutally destroyed" in the game's words). I was out of healing by this point so good news.







The plant drops three pineapples, which are about enough to get back to satiated food level.







My equipment by the end of UT 1-3. I found a ring of electricity resistance which is good. I didn't show it, but I spent some extra time fighting the plants unarmed to train up my unarmed skill, which will be important in a moment. My endurance (i.e. HP) is also a bit higher as rest-healing injuries trains it and I rested after fighting the smaller plants to train my unarmed fighting skill.







Outside the UT. The city of Atnam can be seen to the north. Big Sean fucked around with this message at 03:00 on May 17, 2015