Builds

Everything is Crab Vegan and Pacifist Builds: Diet, Dove and Zen

By Nocti · Last updated

Choose a food route without confusing diet with achievement rules. Prepare a Dove attempt without dealing damage, or add the separate damage-taken restriction for Zen.

Choose the restriction before choosing upgrades

Diet

Vegan names an Evolution and a starting genetic. Choosing either does not by itself prove a Dove or Zen achievement; inspect the starting effect and plan compatible food.

Dove

Win a run without dealing any damage. Receiving damage is a different condition; passive or returned damage still needs attention even when you never press attack.

Zen and Can't touch this

Zen forbids both dealing and taking damage. Can't touch this requires completing a run without taking damage, but does not add Dove's prohibition on dealing it. Healing afterward does not erase a hit.

Food, movement and protection

Diet and fungi

Version 1.1 says mushroom experience scales with Herbivore and Vegan. This does not make every mushroom safe to eat. Use the mushroom guide to check effects before relying on fungi; inspect Fungoid separately from the two named experience bonuses.

Vegan · Herbivore · Fungoid

Reach food or keep a reserve

Compare Forager, Ruminant, Cheek Pouch and Prehensile Tail by the shortage you actually face: reaching food, gaining enough progress or retaining a surplus. Read the offered card and its trigger; a list of food options is not a requirement to collect all four.

Forager · Ruminant · Cheek Pouch · Prehensile Tail

Avoid contact

Compare Smol and Leap when the problem is getting out of an attack. Choose an exit that does not end beside another threat, and keep the movement control usable after changing attack bindings.

Smol · Leap

Recovery belongs to the right goal

Inspect Fur or Shell for a run that permits taking damage, including a Dove-only attempt. Do not turn recovery or resistance into permission to receive damage for Zen or Can't touch this.

Fur · Shell

Route phases

  1. Write down the intended restriction: diet only, Dove, Zen or Can't touch this. Choose an available starting genetic by its stated effect; do not wait for a presumed mandatory pair.
  2. Before collecting upgrades, check your attack controls and passive effects. For Dove or Zen, avoid deliberate attacks, poison, Spines and returned-damage effects. Test uncertain damage attribution outside the achievement attempt.
  3. Route through food you can reach without the attacks your goal excludes. If food is present but dangerous to collect, improve the approach; if you collect more than you need now, compare storage before another damage upgrade.
  4. For an ally route, distinguish recruitment from damage attribution. Version 1.1 adds friendship offers accepted with the interact control, and says charmed Pilferrets bring only vegetation when the player is Vegan. These feeding rules do not prove how every ally attack counts for an achievement.
  5. Before a boss, identify an escape and the protection you can actually activate. If your selected mode has extra rules, check its achievement behavior before using it for the attempt; a player's Pressure 1 recommendation is not proof that every mode qualifies.

Starting genetics and attack controls

Vegan and Pacifist are starting choices to compare in their own guides. In the cited Dove discussion, sirlockjaw describes using Minimalist with a dash and recommends unbinding attacks. OddDreamsDigital agrees that unbinding helps prevent accidental attacks. This supports a control precaution, not a guarantee for that genetic or a complete current build.

Prepare the final encounter

Path_of_Circles suggests allies or environmental damage for the last boss in the Dove discussion. Treat this as player advice, and keep your own damaging effects out of the attempt. If you rely on Cataclysm for Zen, the official 1.1 correction matters: meteor damage is recorded and invalidates Zen. Check protection duration and the final result instead of judging success from an unchanged health bar.

Continue with the relevant goal

Sources and their scope

  • Official achievement conditions

    Official conditions for the three damage goals; they do not define all damage attribution or genetic unlock rules.

  • Official Version 1.1 notes

    See mushroom experience, charmed Pilferret food, friendship interactions and recorded meteor damage. These are versioned changes.

  • Dove discussion: named replies

    The named replies supply the control precaution and player route suggestion. The thread is not a complete developer specification.