I find the key to GC6 is ESP, telecontrol, and a lyre of charming or Dulcis' favor. Mystics are great for scitalking and buffs.

Early game I try to use the heaviest boots and gauntlets I find, even better if they're broken. I'm not positive but I believe having dex and agi reduced from armor makes them train faster. Of course there's the leg strength boost too, if you can keep yourself fed.

I'll try to be more active from now on. I would just rest on my laurels, but I've still got 0.50 to beat. And maybe the devs will come back with a new version? LIVAN is definitely much easier, but it's a good tool to learn what to expect from higher level baddies.

Thanks guys! And thanks to the whole community. I've mostly just been lurking, but I couldn't have done it without you! Most people don't see a game like IVAN as fun, but you all stuck it out and found the secrets and shared them. I've never played a game more mind-bogglingly frustrating when it constantly goes wrong in the worst ways, or nearly as rewarding when it all goes just right.

My first win, and it was a high priest victory! I'd killed Elpuri once before, but I was an idiot and died to Sherry immediately after. This time I was prepared. Oh, and this was LIVAN. My praise to those who have beaten vanilla IVAN!

The game started pretty unpromisingly, except a SoCM in UT. Early game I was having terrible hunger problems, Genny's pineapples didn't even satiate me. It didn't help that Attnam was a screen away from tunnel exit, and then GC another screen away across a huge sea. A fountain spirit gave me a belt of levitation, so I thought at least I could fly across that sea when I needed. Unfortunately those GC fountains also cursed me with lycanthropy a few times.

I had to walk all the way around the sea or risk turning into a werewolf and plopping in on the way back for a cure. After the third trip from Attnam to GC the stomach started growling loudly, and no food in sight since I'd already cleared the top couple levels. I had no choice but to read the SoCM I'd found in UT on my leg to become unburdened and hopefully make it to food faster. I was hoping to save it for a wand of mirroring, but it was better to use it than starve. On the way downstairs to hunt for food, I stopped by a fountain just to fill the belly slightly. "Who knows, maybe I can wish for a holy banana?" I thought.

No such luck. It sucked me down two levels. But what's that I hear? Wolves howling in the distance? I shivered from excitement and my mouth was watering! I prayed my bronze boots and gloves would protect me and started chasing those wolves like there was no tomorrow. That was the end of my hungry days.

That level also contained the dwarven minefield. Combined with the bones level above I'd skipped through the fountain, which contained another, already looted minefield, I made out very well. Saga of the pantheon, SoCM, scroll of charging, Monedr pass, arcanite chain mail, and a broken ruby knight sword +8. Next stop was Enner beast's lair.

I didn't think I was ready yet, so I returned to Attnam to see if I could find some supplies. I tried my luck buying an oil lamp, and got a dragon cuirass from the genie! That's when I knew this would be an excellent game.

Equipped with my dragon hide cuirass, I went exploring Kharaz-Arad, only to find a mithril dragon cuirass in that dungeon! I cleared the dungeon and went to use my Monedr pass.

By this point I was getting along very well with the evil gods. Infuscor kept giving me scrolls of teleport, which helped to train Intelligence a lot. Cruentus had given me his Muramasa. I was sure I was champion of Mortifer, but I couldn't find an altar anyhwere to check. I polymorphed one on the way to Monedr, and got a shiny new Neerc Se-ulb. However, it was too heavy to wield one-handed, so i just saved it for later. Armed with a mithril cuirass, ruby knight sword +8 and katana named Muramasa I made fairly short work of Monedr and finally got a nice wand, cloning with 3 charges. I used it to make stacks of sagas and SoCMs, changed my right arm to phoenix feather and hardened my right leg to the same. Now I could wield Neerc Se-Ulb in my right and Muramasa in my left for maximum life drain, while still under 70 total HP to avoid unwanted attention.

I did have one spot of trouble under Monedr: a golem hit my head, hard. It left a nasty scar, and the game gave me the message "Your head is bleeding very badly." However, it remained white on my HP doll and I was still at full health. I assume this meant my head was permanently reduced to 1 HP, as I only had 12 Endurance (13 at one point, but a fountain dropped it back down.) I worried seriously about this the rest of the game.

After Monedr I killed Enner beast without much hassle and continued down to the first mystic dark frog level. Before fighting mystics, I decided to train int higher so I could ESP them and teleport there to tame. My int had reached 30 without even starting to sci-talk, so no problems there. Hardened my cuirass to octiron and continued until Elpuri's level. Then I went all-out on int training with dolphins and mirrored sagas and completed my final set (see image), changing all my limbs to golden eagle feather. My gloves and boots were psypher too, but I decided the flexibility of valpurium would be more useful than AV overkill. Especially on GEF limbs.

I knew this would bring out Izzy, but I was ready with high elemental resist and all my wands in a box but a few of teleportation to get to him. Killed him, Elpuri, Golgor Dhan, Ur-Khan, and Sherry all on the same level. I resurrected Izzy, but Sherry killed him. She gave me the most trouble, but it wasn't much. I think she hit me for 1 HP. Kept going down to Oree without major problems, got the shirt and went back to Attnam.

No trouble there, either. Except for finding the damn nut I accidentally teleported away. I tamed the blonde wife so I wouldn't be lonely as High priest, killed everyone else.

Notes: Sorry for the extra long post, but I'm excited! I realize Lampshade mentioned he did not want dragon cuirass to be change-materialable, but I don't accept it. It comes in different materials, it hardens, why shouldn't I be able to change it? I consider this game to be completely legitimate. Looking at script files to find out about psypher might have been cheating, but I had to get my Int to 155 to get it, which is not easy. I think a char with intelligence that high would have discovered psypher on his own.

Yes, it is regular 0.50. My only guess as to why they were enchanted so high, is because I had a pack of wolves following me from a fountain and an angel... I didn't have Atavus's armor yet. Actually, I don't think I had any body armor at all.

Take a look at this

Here's my full set as I walked into Attnam. Luckily a pet took care of the skeletons carrying those axes, I'm sure I would have been one-shotted. They ended up being my weapons for quite a while.

Permanent levitation from the first fountain I saw! And I only had to try once. Unfortunately, this makes it nearly impossible to replace limbs.

Just the thread I registered for!

I had one of my best games going in a while on 0.50, and after getting arm strength up to 17 and end to 12, decided it was time to get myself belt of levitation. No reason in particular, I had already cleared minefield, just had not found a single belt in the entire game so far and figured it'd be good to have. So I filled myself up, picked up a few corpses and headed over to New Attnam. Huang Ming Pong got me on the first couple tries with cheap shots, so I thought "screw this, I'm gonna get him with this mithril bear trap."

Well, all that came of that was losing both of my arms. I was trying to play natural limbs this time, and hadn't had much luck with finding any good gods, but decided since I already lost them I might as well look for a book of Silva in Attnam and get some good replacements. On the way there, though, I got stuck in a spider web. Apparently spider webs have a dex check to get out, so I was hopelessly stuck with no arms, in and out of consciousness. Of course a spider comes along and slowly but surely poisons me to death on UT 2.

Why didn't I think it necessary to bring my adamant golem?!

Not the greatest game, but it had a lot of promise. Ended up being 13th on my highscore list, which I rarely make anymore.

The things I hope to find in a bones:

helmet of piercing perception +2
dragon hide cloak +1
meteoric steel chain +1
saal'thul +1
2 steel axes +3
2 wands of mirroring
2 scrolls of charging
almost 10 each scrolls of enchant armor and weapon

At least that golem won't be there to protect my corpse, but if only I had a whistle this wouldn't have happened...