btw, 64-bit support is officially dropped from k8IVAN. i see 0 reasons to support it.

the thing i hate in literally all games is pet/ally management. that's why i'm playing IVAN without pets (and never finished it . pets sux. they often do what you don't want them to do, and vice versa. they run away. they cannot equip things from their inventory (fixable, but i'm too lazy for that . that is, pets is annoyance, and i am really sad that you literally need pets to beat the game. ok, you prolly can kill Elpuri solo, but the further you go…

and the worst thing with pets is that i don't know how to fix them. direct control is even more boring. adding more pet options is still not flexible enough, and basically becomes a scripting with unusable UI.

this might look like a small problem (or even not a problem at all for other people), but for me it is so important that i refuse getting pets at all. (yes, i immediately selling scolls of taming and lyres, as i have no use for them.) and i desperately need a solution… but i don't know how that soultion should look. sigh.

NetHack I Smell!

there is another interesting bit of info the game tells you sometimes: weapon usability. it is that "you have much trouble using this item" prompt (and its various other versions). this is quite important info, and you can always check it by unwielding the weapon and wielding it again… but it is boring.

so i added color codes to paperdoll slots, and textual description to equipment string. slot background will be brown for "somewhat difficult", and progressive brighter red for higher difficulties.

i'm not sure about hit value yet: it is interesting info, and something you can roughly figure out by yourself from weapon stats… but i am too lazy to do it. i may remove this info later, though, or make it depend of PC Int level (so boosting Int will have yet another use).

and now i want a good way to destroy items. there are many items i want to completely get rid of, so monsters will not pick them up. suddenly, bottles with sulphuric acid are a scarce resource! and i started offering almost any trash i found too. any chests are great. and by the way, closing doors now has way more sense: the mosters cannot see items this way (if not spawned inside a room, of course). it's not fun to see a monster wearing ommel armor +20, you know. and they WILL run for it (literally run, monsters are running to get the equipment).

but it is fun to set a trap on some good item too. stupid thing will run for the item, and… traps are not mostly useless anymore!