A brief guide to the various systems of character progression and enhancement in Inventaverse.
A reasonably large gap in Inventaverse exists between the new player and the extremely deep tool set laid before them. Inventaverse contains a massive customization feature set, but currently there aren't very many resources of information on how to utilize that feature set. With this article I'm going to attempt to bridge that gap by giving a summary and how-to for each of the main customization tools in Inventaverse:
- The Character System
- The Artifact System
- The Skill Matrix System
- The Incantation System
Each of these systems are highly detailed, and the player certainly deserves a how-to guide to maximizing your character in Inventaverse. Spoiler alert, this guide starts out very simple, but eventually gets extremely deep, please feel free to skip ahead to the stuff that matters to you.
The Character System
As an Inventaverse player you have the option of choosing from any one of 18(!) unique playable characters. Each one provides various advantages and disadvantages. As a new player only 10 of the characters are unlocked. If you're looking for a quick answer on which characters are easiest to pick up and play as a new player, here's a short list: Secret Agent, Ninja, Spaceman, Inventor.
* Selecting a character is your first choice in Inventaverse, make the most of it.
Every character has a unique set of strengths and weaknesses, and depending on what you want to do, one character may be better suited than the rest for the task at hand. Here's a breakdown of how each one performs and how their attack and special move are used
Secret Agent - medium speed and jump, but his retracting grappling hook give him great mobility. his bouncing bullets make him highly deadly in enclosed spaces.
Cowboy - medium speed and low jump, his dynamite special can destroy anyone or give him a boost to reach high areas. his bouncing bullets hit a little harder and move a little faster than the secret agent's.
Wizard - slow speed, low jump, the wizard can materialize a block at a target location. his slowfall allows him to float across far gaps, and his main attack ignores walls.
Karate Fighter - high speed and high jump, the karate fighter has excellent mobility, an area of effect healing special, throwing kamas, a great spinning kick slowfall with knockback, and a sai for a melee weapon.
Knight - slow when walking, but fast when he uses his dash special. he's immune to environmental traps like spikes and has extra health. his throwing axe hits hard, and he carries a battle axe as a melee weapon.
Witch Doctor - he's fast, and his projectile weapon is very fast. his special allows you to heal yourself and any nearby allies, and he also has wallgrab.
Miner - not particularly fast and he doesn't jump high, but his special allows him to burrow into the ground or walls. his explosives are highly destructive.
Inventor - medium speed normally, but when he uses his rocket boots, he's quite fast. they allow him to hover, jump higher, and fly. his death ray is very fast and does high damage.
Spaceman - medium speed, but his special provides excellent mobility by allowing him to reverse gravity. his main attack is a hypertronic beam with a knockback effect.
Ninja - high speed, jump, and wall grab, the Ninja uses a grappling hook and throwing stars to move to difficult places and defeat enemies, additionally he carries a katana for a melee weapon.
Psychopath - relatively slow and with low jump, the psychopath may seem like he has poor mobility but his special allows him to sacrifice a little health to teleport to any ground location. he's also immune to environmental hazards like spikes and carries a chainsaw for a melee weapon.
Warlock - not a fast character, but a versatile one. the warlock's teleport special ability can be used to quickly escape danger, fool would-be adversaries, or use it as a boost to reach higher places, in addition his fireball is a powerful attack, and like other magic users he has a slowfall.
Shadow Beast - even though the shadow beast's primary attack is relatively weak, the ability to become invisible is exceptionally useful in a lot of scenarios. combine that with high speed, high jump and wall grab.
Sniper - in terms of mobility the sniper isn't high on the list, he moves fairly quickly, jumps pretty high and has wall grab and a slowfall, but his real strength comes from being able to see the entire map and eliminate enemies from afar. Weapon upgrades increase the frequency that he can fire his primary weapon.
Vampire - the vampire has excellent mobility. holding the jump button will allow him to change into a bat and fly. with every direct hit, his primary attack allows him to drain health from the enemy. his special is an AOE damage over time.
Swashbuckler - fast, with great offense and defense. his special allows him to ignore almost all damage coming in, and his primary attack is extremely powerful. add to that wallgrab and great speed and jump, and a cutlass for a melee weapon.
Exiled One - while mobility may not be his strong suit, the exiled one excels at self-healing, deception, and he rounds out with a good primary attack, slowfall, and a black sword for melee weapon.
Witch - besides the shadow beast, the only other character who can become invisible is the witch. however, the witch cannot move while invisible. the witch's primary attack is VERY powerful, and like other magic users, the witch is able to slowfall. also, poison potions heal the witch the same way healing potions do.
Decisions, Decisions...
It's a lot to choose from, but as I said earlier, new players are limited to only 10 of the 18 characters. In order to unlock the rest of them, you must discover them in the game. Specifically in the procedural world you can access by entering this door in your home world:
* Every home world contains a doorway that allows you to enter one or more procedurally generated worlds. these worlds are different every day.
The Artifact System
There are 25 unique artifacts that you can use to improve your character's abilities. Artifacts are items that you are able to equip in your home world prior to entering a level. You are able to equip a maximum of 3 artifacts at one time. As a new player, you have access to 6 of them.
Your First 6 Artifacts
After you log into Inventaverse for the very first time, you'll notice that upon visiting the basement of your home world, you have certain objects waiting for you there. They look like this:
* You may only notice 5 artifacts in your basement, an additional artifact is hidden in the bedroom of your first homeworld.
Compass - allows the user to teleport to a random location every 25 seconds.
Gravitronic Nullifier - ignore the effects of gravity for 6 seconds once every 20 seconds.
Trama Kit - heal yourself to full health once every minute.
Laser AP - more fire power!
Refractive Field Generator - reduces most incoming beam damage.
Can of Zapo Cola - passively increases run speed and jump, and every 30 seconds allows the player to heal 6 health.
Since you're able to equip 3 artifacts simultaneously, your objective should be able to achieve a combined effect that synergizes with your overall character strategy. You may notice that a mixture of artifacts from the list above can improve survivability. When you combine the abilities of your artifacts with your character selection, some very interesting combinations emerge. For instance, you can compensate for the poor mobility of the cowboy by equipping the Gravitronic Nullifier. Or you can make the knight even harder to kill by equipping multiple healing artifacts. If you're getting hit by a lot of beam attacks, perhaps from a sniper, be sure to pick up the Refractive Field Generator.
Active Effects
Pressing the number key associated with each of your artifacts will activate the "active effect" of the artifact. These effects are often have a reset period associated with them. For example, with the Trama Kit artifact, you can heal your character to full health once every 60 seconds.
Passive Effects
In addition to the active effect of an artifact, all artifacts also have a variety of passive effects. These are typically a mix of the following complementary secondary stat buffs.
- Slowly regenerate health over time
- Maximum health increased
- Poison potions behave the same as healing potions when collected.
- Increase the area of effect of your incantations on all sides.
- Initial weapon rank increased
- Increase speed
- Increase jump
- Personal rebounding shield
- Reduces all damage
These secondary effects are revealed when you inspect each artifact by pressing the 'e' key. Be sure to select artifacts that feature primary and secondary effects that align with your overall character strategy.
The Skills Matrix System
Beyond your character selection and choice of artifacts, the skill matrix system can provide a massive enhancement to your gameplay. However, before you can access the skills matrix you need to choose a mentor. Each of the 3 mentors offers a different skills matrix. Once you have discovered a mentor, simply return to your homeworld and talk to your mentor by pressing the 'E' key. Once you've spoken to your mentor, you can access your skills matrix by pressing the 'T' key. This is what it looks like:
* Each hexagon on the skills matrix gives a bonus, advantage or buff.
In Inventaverse, each skills matrix is based on one of the three philosophical disciplines.
- Cosmology
- The Occult
- Magic
The Cosmology Skills Matrix - the cosmology matrix focuses on improving technology artifacts, AP weapons, beam weapons. The three major skills (red hexagons) in the Cosmology matrix are as follows:
- Equips the player with a fourth artifact, the Nanonova AP
- Reduce the cooldown of all technology artifacts by 50%
- Every 12 direct hits will generate a force field at the player's target
The Occult Skills Matrix - the occult matrix is focused mainly on improving eldritch artifacts, increasing direct damage, and durability. The three major skills in the Occult matrix:
- Every 12 direct hits will generate a blackhole at the player's target.
- Reduce the cooldown of all Eldritch artifacts by 50%.
- Every 12 direct hits will fire a powerful antiversal energy bolt at the enemy target.
The Magic Skills Matrix - the magic skill matrix concentrates heavily on catastrophic explosive damage, inceptium based artifacts, situational awareness, and adventuring. The major skills of the Magic matrix:
- Completing a world rewards you with twice the gold collected in that world.
- The cooldown of all Inceptium artifacts is reduced by 50%, and your map screen shows the fully explored world and all items and treasure.
- Your weapon ranks each reduce the cooldown of Wizard's Fire by 30 seconds.
In addition to the major and minor skill traits, the Skills Matrix also features 2 other sets of skill traits. The top row of rainbow-colored traits are reserved for special achievement-based skills that are unlocked when the player completes various objectives. List below are the achievements and various skill trait rewards:
- 10 Treasure chests looted to unlock this trait. -> When you die, you are resurrected where you died, but limbo is quadrupled.
- 25 Worlds completed to unlock this trait. -> All Characters have wall-grab.
- 50 Survivors rescued to unlock this trait. -> You can now see the spirit of deceased enemies
- 75 Deaths to unlock this trait. -> When your health reaches zero, instead of dying, you are healed to 5. (This will only happen once a minute)
- 100 Red stars collected to unlock this trait. -> Collecting a red star grants the maximum number of weapon ranks.
- 200 Enemies killed to unlock this trait. -> You enter a blood frenzy. Your health is gradually reduced over time, but your damage is increased by 50%.
You'll also notice 3 more hexagons in the middle. Those hexagons are reserved for the 3 books of magic related to Incantations, see the next section for more info on Incantations.
The Incantation System
The Incantation system is a reasonably limited API aimed at giving players the ability to write custom scripts of their own into Inventaverse. These scripts are automatically bound to the R, F, and V keys. Accessing the Incantations screen is as easy as hitting the 'I' key while your character is located at their homeworld.
* Your code is on the left; the incantations API documentation is on the right.
To unlock the Incantations API, you just need to buy one of the three magic books in the shop. The shop is located in any proc world, and all three books are for sale.
The interface for writing Incantations is relatively straight forward. Simply select R, F, or V, type your custom script into the UI, and then test it in your homeworld. The homeworld is a fine place to test your scripts, however, in the event that you manage to break the game engine with your script, simply refresh your browser. If you've written a script that breaks it beyond that, there's a way to clear your incantations in the player profile menu on the community site.
Incantations are a complicated and interesting part of Inventaverse. Even if you've got your character perfectly configured, with artifacts and a completed skills matrix, there's still room to squeeze that last tiny bit of performance out of the Incantations system. And that last tiny bit of performance, can be decisive.
For more information on how to write Incantations, see Psionic Logic: How to write an Incantation in Inventaverse
