Disclamer: I did not put this post in the development subforum as access to it is restricted, and a wider audience would be nice.

Hey!
As some of you may have noticed recently, cizra started to hack the current IVAN code to make it more readable and cleaner for further development later. This is a great thing since so far no one touched the code, and all the ,,variants'' focus on adding new content, not changing existing rules or fixing bugs.
I played a little with the build system for Windows and today the first working version of the new code was born. At the same time I installed the bugtracking system called Mantis to make reporting bugs and requesting features easier and more organized than a ton of forum topics.

So how can you help if you are running Windows?
1. Download the newest exec from http://herself.unixstorm.org/IVAN-devel-win32.zip
2. Play, play, play
3. Report bugs to http://herself.unixstorm.org/mantis/view_all_bug_page.php

So how can you help if you are running any Linux, *BSD?
1. git clone git://gitorious.org/ivan/ivan.git ivan; cd ivan; ./waf configure; ./waf build; sudo ./waf install; ivan
2. and 3. are the same as above

Unfortunately, at the time of writing, bug #0000001 is hiding all the stats and item enchantments making the game pretty hard to play, but hopefully it will be addressed very soon.

The current version log is available at http://herself.unixstorm.org/CURRENT-VERSION.txt If it looks like a wall of text to you, please open it in WordPad.

Also: Kahvi, Alvers, and other people interested in development, please hang out on IRC (channel: ##ivan) sometime.

Cheers!

Yay!

*proceeds to playtest*

If you manage to get Ivan to 1.0, I swear I will repent atheism and start worshipping you. But first, testing.

Okay, seems that the text-missing bugs are all fixed, the new devel version is up and ready

Stickied the topic
So have there been any changes to the gameplay? Or are we just checking to make sure that the hacked code still works the same as the original code?

Not any gameplay chenges yet, just checking the hacks

Well you said the equipment bug is fixed but I found some "hardened leather gloves+". I downloaded today, immediately after your post above.

Cool! I know Mantis well (worked as a beta-tester and QA worker for almost 1,5 years) so I will do as much testing and bugwriting as I will be able to. Let us proceed for the gr8er glory of IVAN!

capristo: The enchantment bug was in a completely different file, that's why it slipped cizra's attention. Anyway, I hunted it down and the new devel version with enchantments is up! Also fixes BDR fullscreen bug.

Also, mantis has the first issue that need discussion. Dive in and post your ideas

Whoop! Double posting
I read "JOB: Ighalli\'s Experimental God System" in the devel forums, the basic implementation is here. You can choose the god effect you desire when praying. It obviously needs testing and suggestions
Also, I know that Mellis prayer description is farked up, I must have missed it Will fix that later.

Hmm... it seems pretty dead here and I don't exactly play IVAN much at all, but... I got bored.

So I've gotten the code from the git repo to compile and run on Windows 7 with Visual Studio 2008. I'm using the fullscreen-option branch. I also know nothing about git so I'm a little afraid to upload it. But if anyone's able to help, let me know.

It is a little dead. IVAN needs a major update and a post on R.G.R.A, and bad. That would stimulate a little activity, I'm sure. Unfortunately... we might need that activity before we get such an update/post.

Durned lazy devs! :shakes fist:

(maybe we just need someone to implement all the stuff talked up in that IVAN .51 plan Erno got out of the IVANcon into the CVS build, who then announces on rgra)

what's RGRA?

Rec.Games.Roguelike.Announcements. It's a newsgroup; most new roguelikes get announced and introduced to the greater roguelike community there.

I've been meaning to keep on track of what's new and be involved in some level... But I've been way too busy to even think about this since August. Sorry guys. =( I understand that Herself is doing something, though?

Hell, I don't exactly have a lot of coding practice, but I'd love to help. You tell me what to do, and by god, I'll do it.

Drop by at IRC some time...

Alright, so, I dived into the code and I think I figured out how to remove randomization of starting attributes and growth rates (I think this was a common complaint among some of you?) Now all attributes start at 10 and level at the average rate. I can try to upload it to git as soon as I figure out how git works...

Edit: Got it! I made a clone of the repo here: http://gitorious.org/~singularity/ivan/singularitys-ivan/

Somebody download the unrandom_stats branch and let me know what you think. It should compile with VS2008 on windows, with the following caveats:

You'll have to specify to Visual Studio where you've installed the SDL and libboost libraries.
If you're not using my visual studio config files, you'll also have to "exclude from project" any files that say in their comments that they're compiled by another file (and there's a lot of those >.> )
There are umpteen-million warnings still, I've only dealt with compilation errors.

All that being said, I mostly want confirmation that this still compiles on linux, since it seems like that's what most of you use. I hope I didn't break anything >.>

Hmm... I dunno. I think the random stats at the start adds a kind of uniqueness to each playthrough. Like if you started with high DEX and AGI and they went up quite quickly, then you could afford to wear the heavy armor types like plate mail and metal boots, as well as being quite deadly with inaccurate weapons. And if you had high learning speeds for INT and WIS you could potentially gain some very nice artificial limbs as the game went on (much faster than the typical character who would have to grind through books and science talk to get to the next INT milestone).
Also it allows you to choose to build on your strengths or cover your weaknesses.

The random stats aren't bad, just a bit undocumented. That said, tossing your work isn't what I'd suggest - it would be very nice to have the option to pick random/unrandom starts as a config option.

*shrugs* Well, I haven't played enough games of IVAN to know what I'm doing yet, so I guess I prefer to have the same clean slate every time I start a new game. I suppose it comes down to personal preference. It would be a bit more helpful if you had a way in game to tell what your strength and weakness were, though.

It's actually not too hard to figure out. By the time you're half-way through UT it's pretty clear because your strengths would have gained 3 or more points even with no training.

Eh. In any case, I like having a clean, unbiased slate to start with. Anyway, I've updated my local branch again. Now there's a config option to set it, as BDR suggested. Anyone who's willing to compile it and give it a shot, let me know how it works. I probably won't be touching the code again for a while unless an error springs up.

Edit: Bah... I can't seem to drop one item from a stack of two. If I try to move that slider thing, I get an assertion failure. Time to start digging through warnings, I suppose...