Many, many years after the creation IVAN, I have decided as to also add my 2 cents on the topic of how to progress through Ivan. Despite me being generally new around the community, I believe even the best of players can learn something from this. It also will be a compilation of several pages of other work, so if you're ever feeling too lazy to search up a specific page, you can take a look here. This is meant to be a generalist guide detailing my opinions on literally everything and tips/trick for progressing through stages. I will go through each topic with its corresponding subtopics, then add a unhelpful TL;DR for lazy people. This guide doesn't not contain save scumming and code modification, which I don't bother to link as it completely takes the fun out of the game (I consider exploits are addressed like this: If the devs knew about it, would they allow it?)
Many of these general tips are applicable through all versions. Remember, 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 negating intelligence requirements for changing materials or cloning certain scrolls, so do be careful). There are other interesting but mostly useless tips labeled as '''''Source Code Facts:''''', which hopefully teach people some things they don't know (and gives more reason to pore through this massive document hehe). Oh yeah, speaking of tips, a certain cerise Australian mammal would like remind everyone that in newer versions, the F1 key (located in the top left of the screen), provides a lot of helpful information, especially if you are new to a feature. You can use it at various moments to view detailed explanations.
Enjoy ;p (and mind the humor, I don't mind)