This might be helpful, if you don't mind spoilers and some reading.

Unfortunately for your limited attempts, I think IVAN is the kind of game where you're expected to sometimes just die in the beginning - you start very fragile and with no options for solving impossible situations, but restarting is quick and easy.

I quite like that the early game is a bit of a toss up - I tend to play rather fast in UT, either surviving or trying again. If I find a good early item or once I get to Attnam, I try to slow down, get some treasure to sell, close the most glaring gaps in my equipment, maybe polypile if I have a wand of polymorph.

Once you get to the GC or TX, you tend to have a selection of options for most situations, so surviving there is more about not screwing up than about praying that the RNG won't screw with you.

It's been there all along, but because they can't move and only eat stuff on their square, you'll rarely get a chance to see it.


They're resistant, not outright immune. I just checked and they will take some poison damage, but you'd probably need to feed Jenny a lot of spiders.

I would have to test that, but I think you can also throw her a spider corpse or somesuch, and she'll happily poison herself.

Hm, that looks like the result of Jenny eating a mushroom. When she's confused she'll sometimes attack her own plants (BTW, you can throw alcohol at her to cause that) and she could get teleportitis, which would explain her moving around.

Scars are forever!

The game will ask you if you want to continue the interrupted action and will remember that you already took half the time required to take a sip, so it's possible to finish a command even when interrupted.

But yeah, golems can be !!FUN!!. You had a wand of invisibility and at early GC levels it's often better to just zap yourself and run from the golem.


Elite guards can still be tamed, but while in 0.50 all taming was successful, now you roll you Charisma to see if you succeed and stronger monsters are more resistant.

BTW worrying about food is quite normal in IVAN.

* There's quite some food in the Attnam store. It's expensive, but better than starving.
* You'll find food in the Gloomy Caves, you just have to keep exploring.
* Have a look at the holy books in the library shop. Mellis will fill your empty bottles and cans with potions or food. Seges will feed you when you're hungry, Silva and Nefas will feed you when you're at least very hungry.

Note that it's better to pray to gods of consistent alignment and to wait several hours between prayers, or they might get angry. But you can pray to several gods close in alignment and get the benefits of all of them. You had a holy book of Mellis, so food should not have had been a problem (I'm sure I screwed up the conjugation, but it sounds fun).

If you get to Attnam again, have a look in the shop if there is a ring of fire resistance / cloak of fire resistance. If so, buy it and you should be fine in Gloomy Caves. Even without it, it's not impossible to survive, it's just more based on luck.

These are great, thank you! I especially like the castle with little flags.

Ouch! That was most likely a polymorphed critter, with such a way out of depth monster it's either you can escape for long enough and the polymorph ends, or you get owned. And yeah, lightning rebound (or zapping a wand of fireballs in a way that blows you up too) is a quite common YASD, I think.

BTW, a few more random pieces of advice:
* The r(u)n command is useful to get away from something, or to chase a fleeing monster.
* If you step on a gas trap, use the run command to move out of the gas faster. You will breathe in less of the gas.
* Also notice that there is both a (D)rink and (T)aste command. Taste will sip only a little from the bottle, which is useful if you want to quickly heal a lesser wound without using up the whole potion.

Once you find a wand of cloning, you could clone the stat potions. However, I think that in early game, every point can make a difference, so I'd drink it.


UT3 tends to be dangerous, so small stat penalties are probably better than no armor.


Yeah, you will need to buy some bananas from the store.

That's pretty badass!

And horn of healing is strong. There's a reason why it's rare, very heavy and has a long cooldown.

Wow, that's a pretty impressive track record!

Is the Loss mode in Elona the one with permadeath? If so, you're a madman. I enjoyed Elona for a while, but could never bring myself to try it with permadeath.


To specify, they will follow you if they are near you while you go up the stairs, like in NetHack, but won't follow after you later like in Brogue.


Equipment in IVAN is often about trade-offs. Plate mail offers exceptional Armor Value, but penalizes your Dex and Agi. Chain mail is the middle ground, while cloth/leather armor gives less AV, but with no stat penalties. Similarly heavy weapons will be more damaging but less accurate, and light weapon will do less damage, but strike much more often.

Dual wielding is strong, as it gives you two attacks and two block chances. Two-handed weapons, on the other hand, have much higher damage. I personally also think that shields are quite viable nowadays, as they give you a boost in AV and a high block chance.


You should be fine with no exploits or grinding.

If you find any bottle of can with ommel stuff inside, drink it for sweet stat boosts.


Sorry, not yet. It's been sitting in my TODO list for a long time...


Unlike in other roguelikes, you total HP is not that important to keep track of. You can have your head cut off while your HP are still high if only your head is damaged. Have a look at the body part mannequin in upper right for color changes: bright red means the limb is dangerously damaged, striped grey means it's likely to be destroyed if you don't do something about it right now.

It's good to have either fire resistance, searching or levitation as you go to the Gloomy Cave.

Golems are often more dangerous than they look, but they tend to be slow and cannot see invisible.

Explosions and some monster attacks can break wands, and wand explode with their corresponding effect when broken. It's better to have all but your emergency wands stashed in a small chest, as a cascade of exploding wands can cause a sudden YASD.

Have a look through the starting village and later Attnam, you might find some useful NPCs.