If anything, Kahvi's metaphysics game reminds me of the plans to implement magic in an esoteric way. I need to think about it in a simple way. All roads lead to astral projection.

I agree, and I like it that the game decides I need a banana flesh leg.
I think some of the motivation behind Ighalli's original system was aimed at allowing the player to determine what kind of assistance to receive from the god. For instance, Seges has a lot of abilities but sometimes I just want the flames put out instead of being fed a delicious meal.
The list Ighalli put up is roughly a rebalance of what is the present system, which is needed. I've run out of hours in the day to go through point by point, but it's more or less complete.

I want to know if there will be changes to the mechanics. I read there will be no cooldowns; will there still be negative effects? Punishment?
I'm not really into the idea of banking a a favor from a god for later use, that's possibly what made Mellis overpowered.

Will there be a relation system as there is today?
What renewed role can altars play?

Fisrt of all, this is a really interesting game, well thought-out and richly illustrative of metaphysical concepts. I tested out some mechanics by adding two human-only players and deleting the rest. Now I am playing against two AI players and I am finding they are quite belligerent!

This took me a while to get the hang of, but now I understand how it works. It is easiest if you have at least one co-operative down-stream agent to help push you into the right square.

I don't know how the agents could be represented in IVAN. At least one of them could be the player itself. I wonder if the robot agents could act as a kind of zodiac, determining the greater part of the player's current position? As the player progresses into new positions along the major cartesian axes, this unlocks a new set of manoeuvers/abilities.

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I wonder what we might mean by a magic system in IVAN. If we look broadly, any actions that are not able to be performed by the player without the requisite items (scrolls, wands etc) can be said to be magical type actions. In short, magic.
We want to avoid a spell-casting system that works by mana points. Such a system is not in use at the moment, and I don't think one based on that ubiquitous mechanic is about to be invented for IVAN.

We want control over how magic is used. But there are lots of ways in which magic is used in IVAN. Sources of magic include: wands, scrolls, rings (states) and some item enchantments and definitely the gods, at the moment, and of course potions and in particular the ommel materials.
It occurs to me that there is no particular restriction on the use of magic; the player can use all types of magic, commune with the broadest range of most useful gods and make use of just about any magical item at any point in the game (unless you're maimed).

Kahvi's game depicts some metaphysical structure that IVAN could possibly make use of, and it prompts me to describe a way of structuring some exclusivity in the range of magical abilities at the player's disposal:

The four axes might represent the following ideas:
faith/cleric vs superstition/druid/sage (this is the Holy vs Extreme axis)
fighting vs rationalism (Champion vs Ruler axis)

(Holy) The player is faithful. Then player follows the gods and obtains favours and abilities this way. The player can learn about all the gods. Using rings and scrolls decreases favor with the gods? Player cannot use wands. [EDIT: balanced out by Ighalli's pray ideas which offer the player a panoply of "magic" abilities - or at least access to supernatural interventions].

(Extremist) Superstition, player does not follow all the gods, instead only a select subset (three or four?). Gods outside the subset are extremely punitive. Using unaligned materials decreases favor with subset gods. Slaying aligned monsters decreases favour with the subset of followed gods.
Player can use rings and wands, but not scrolls.

(Champion) Player is a fighter type and must use rings, scrolls and wands for magical benefits. Player can be monotheist? Atheist?

(Ruler) Rational player type that cannot use rings, only wands and scrolls, but can gain their altered states through learning/eating mushrooms/Astral projection (?) No religion.


I don't know yet what determines whether a player is extremist or champion or a hybrid of the two. Perhaps actions that the player takes in the game help to determine what direction things will be going. At the moment the above is only a model, as an attempt to connect choices about metaphysics to consequences for a player character trying to survive in a post-0.50 IVAN.

In fact, I don't yet know what role Kahvi's game mechanic might play at all. I looked upon his game and felt like the positions of the five agents in the game could represent the five cards the player holds in their hand for one hour in the game, and has this time to use them before the cards are re-shuffled/dealt again? (positions are moved). Each square would represent a special ability or a state (1 free teleport, polycontrol etc), and the player unlocks increasingly powerful abilities somehow in the game.

EDIT: I feel like willpower could be used to determine the number of human controlled or hybrid agents in the game. Higher willpower increases the odds that the player can move a hybrid agent on any particular turn in a Kahvi game.

Awesome! I found the bit in the code where the game determines which head bitmap to use, here.

I think that's the eventual goal. My usual first step before embarking on a change is to wreck the code to try to see if an idea will work.

Alt-tab crashes the game? That's sad. Something is seriously wrong. Please save your thanks for when this bug is fixed.

With a few odd changes, you can play as a ghost!

That's right chao, berzerk sex.


Azba, just add them into some blank space in humanoid.pcx. I like the stuff in the top row, it's the same as the one in full armor right?

Thanks Erno for the link to the file. The faces look amazing! Are they meant to replace the head in the mannequin type thing in the right-hand pane?

I like the idea of trading with Mellis as a prayer effect, and trading for prayer effects of different gods is novel. There really has to be a catch to praying to Mellis, no such thing as a free lunch and all.