SilverSliver's Guide to Ivan
This article is a work in progress by SilverSliver. Please contact on forums if problems arise
Spoiler Warning: This page contains spoilers which may affect your IVAN experience negatively
Many, many years after the creation of JoKe's Guide to Elpuri (Which I do recommend you check out), I have decided as to also add my 2 cents on the topic of how to beat Ivan 0.50. Despite me being generally new around the community, I believe even the best of players can learn something from this.
This will be split into 2 sections:
1. A generalist guide detailing my opinions on certain weapons and tips/trick for clearing levels all the way to Elpuri and even the Lower Gloomy Caves (though spottier in the latter section)
2. A spoiler guide chalk-full of dirtier tricks for everything allowed in the game. This means anything that the game allows is allowed, even if it's likely not intended. This section does not contain save scumming and code modification, which I don't bother to link as it completely takes the fun out of the game. This section will be marked with a Second spoiler warning.
Many of these general tips are applicable through later versions, especially if you plan on taking on GC. Most of the exploits have been patched in the later versions, but feel free to experiment on any of them, wiz mode is great for testing out all your odd ideas (note that wiz mode in later version may allow some rules that aren't possible normally, such as wishing for ommel materials or cloning certain scrolls, so do be careful)
Enjoy ;p
General Guide
Keys
Though many people may simply not mention them because of how simple they are and that they can be accessed simply by clicking the '?' button, I feel that all keys need to be mentioned because not having the knowledge about one important one can hurt a run a lot. That said, let's go through the most important keys:
*Please message me in the forums If I get any key wrong, or I missed some vastly key changing game*
W,A,S,D: Self Explanatory, Movement keys. Also note that the w key, capital and lowercase, can be used to equip weapons, but it's more of a shortcut and doesn't have any major benefits.
Home and End (Located in the top right corner of the keyboard), Page Up and Page Down (Located in the bottom right corner of the keyboard): Not so self explanatory. These keys, which aren't mentioned for whatever reason, allow you to move diagonally. Homes moves you up and left, End moves you down and left, Page Up is up and right, and Page Down is down and right. Importantly, it's counted as a single move. Even more importantly, it allows you to interact with otherwise non-interactable objects, most notably being 2 of Haathbar's bookshelf. MOST IMPORTANTLY, and I cannot stress this enough because it makes your run so much safer, being at a diagonal greatly decreases damage from certain entities, including trapped door explosions, zaps from Wand of Fireballs and Wand of Lightning, and the Enner Beast scream.
WIP .
Weapons
WIP
Spoiler Warning: This page contains spoilers which may affect your IVAN experience negatively
EXPLOITS
As mentioned, beyond this contains many heavier spoilers and tricks that will lead to massive jumps in power and are generally exploits. You have been warned. These also have been helpfully organized in order of how powerful they are in my opinion, the earliest ones arguably not even being exploits but general tips and the later ones being able to completely transform a run. Many of these have been mentioned by JoKe, but I have somewhat differing strategies than him, so I have decided to mention them separately anyways
Genetrix Vesana exploit:
Many people likely are knowledgeable about the carnivorous plants that Jenny spawns around the player as they traverse UT3 and know how helpful they can be (see training above). Yet in order to pass her into Attnam to continue the quest, she must inevitably die or if the player is lucky enough to find a wand of teleportation, be forced to waste a zap to keep her- and her children -alive.
Not so, actually. If you are able to get the belt of levitation from Huang Ming Pong before you meet her, you will be able to completely bypass her without without anything else (not even a lantern!). Simply fly around long enough to find the exit to the underwater tunnels, then enter it. You will enter the room with the numerous greater carnivorous plants and Jenny will have disappeared! Of course, she isn't dead, instead having been teleported randomly to another open location on the level, usually in one of the wooden rooms. Not only have you achieved a free passageway from UT to Attnam, but you have an infinite source of training dummies (giant, evil, munch on your flesh dummies, but dummies nonetheless). Despite this wonderous result, The reason this is ranked the lowest in terms of exploits is because there's no need to drop down to UT3 if you've already gotten the belt of levitation, making this effectively just a small time save for going to UT4, if even necessary
Belt of Levitation exploit:
If you read the previous section, you're probably (besides reading this now) wonder how to even get the belt of levitation before encountering Jenny. After all, Huang Ming Pong is no joke, sporting far more powerful attributes that you could hope to get so early on and being forced to fight without any equipment. Fear not, adventurer. All you require is a lot of food. By dropping food a few squares outside his hut, Huang will move outside to eat you food. For me, this is best accomplished by dropping a piece food one tile above the banana grower path (easily marked by being covered in sweat and constantly having the banana growers walk through them) and another piece of food four tiles above the first piece of food. Feel free to drop another piece of food in between if you're feeling paranoid, and note that Huang will only eat unspoiled food.
From there, you can vomit on his square as many times as you want (JoKe recommends 14 times, I don't count), and when he gets back, the vomit will dissolves his legs. Eat up to bloated or more with the food you have, and wait until Huang either panics, loses consciousness, or loses both legs before challenging him to a fight. Do not wait too long, he might die, and you'll get no sympathy or the belt from me. The fight from there shouldn't be too hard, and you will become the proud owner of a phoenix feather belt of levitation, capable of avoiding virtually all traps, increasing dodge chances, and even being able to be sold for a pretty decent price if you happen to loot one off your ghost.
Guard Taming exploit:
WIP
Library exploit:
WIP
Infinite Banana exploit:
Taking the belt of levitation exploit about e^4.234106504 steps farther, infinite bananas provide infinitely full stomachs, infinite cash, infinitely happy gods, and infinite stalling. It's easily accessible and requires nothing but (albeit extreme) patience.
Ommel Cerumen exploit:
What could be even more broken than infinite of a lot of things? A few REALLY good items WIP