TSPP isn't finished yet but over a couple thousand, not including sprites. It is indeed a lot of work, a lot of fun, a lot of problem solving. No idea about MM though, you'd have to ask Randy. Just remember that MM was a different case, Randy was developing the whole system protocol, hardware, and coloring engine while he did it so that one was lots more work. He continues to update his toolset though and coloring now is more streamlined than when I started on DW, in some cases, significantly.

It is a lot of work to color a game.

Well, that's probably an understatement.

If I kept track of the amount of time it takes to color a game, I probably would come to my senses and play more pinball instead.

Yes, probably. While doing DW I rarely played it. I spent days and days coloring, then would test for a game or two, then color for days and days. I really only got back to enjoying the game after I was done.

Hard to say how long any given frame takes. Several might take just a few clicks, but many take quite some time. I've certainly done frames that took several to over ten minutes, especially when testing things out. Doing sprites takes longer because of the generation process, but I got fairly efficient. I've probably spent on the order of fifteen or more hours the last week just tweaking my current project and that was really just tweaking and finding and fixing issues. If you are going to do it right, do a title justice, you have to pay attention to detail and do your research. While I hope I never have to play the current game I'm doing without a ColorDMD I know I will, it will be weird. Once you get used to seeing the games frames in slow-motion, knowing every detail, every frame, over a period of hours and hours a week, and a few months at that, it's very strange to go somewhere and the game isn't in color.

In my experience it all depends on how the dots were drawn. But there are several instances where a 3 second animation will take me about an hour to color. I am not sure exactly how long it took me to do Judge Dredd but I know it was in the hundreds of hours. That said each game is different. The current project I am working on is going much faster. Some of that has to do with the experience gained with the first project but the dots in this game are done in such a way that makes things a little quicker.

Absolutely Gov. Experience helps and the tools are always improving but some games are just a bear because of the way animations and transitions occur. My next game is going to be a challenge I can already tell.