If this ever comes to fruition, I really hope you consider mixing in the new modes with the old modes, rather than needing to beat all the old ones before encountering the new ones.

I have TOTAN and like the game alright, but none of the original modes are cool or all that fun. Most of the new modes look like they are. I'd hate to see new life breathed into this game, but still be forced to labor through ALL the original modes first, when you'd rather play the new ones. Finding a way to mix them together so it's more a pool of 14 that you pull from would intermix the old and the new and would allow the game to feel fresh from the start rather than a "chore" followed by some payoff.

As a possible compromise, even if they weren't all available from the beginning, maybe beating an original mode unlocks the new version. So if you beat cyclops-original first, then cyclops-new is available along with the other 6 original modes.

While BoP 2.0 has all new modes, I think Dutch made this same mistake. You have to beat all small wheel modes before you ever see the big wheel modes. Most people rarely see them, and thus playing the small wheel modes all of the time feels too repetitive.

Didn't he already say he did this?

I almost left BoP out of the discussion; I knew I'd get disagreement. To me, mode-based games need as much variety as possible, so artificially forcing repetition (you have to play these before those) gets monotonous. To a greater degree, it's what I hate about Road Show.

At least with BoP the modes are more interesting than the original ones in TOTAN.

For those who have a ColorDMD or are willing to install a LCD screen, are these graphics in color (or do you plan to colorize if not)? I have a ColorDMD in my TOTAN now which looks great, and all your cool new animations would look amazing in color!

Oh Boy! I thought you weren't going to color this. If you've changed your mind -- MIND BLOWN!

I've been thinking of selling my TOTAN since I don't play it that often, and I'd prefer to cash out before it possibly gets re-made. I love the work you're doing, but I just don't think I could go back to an orange display since all my games have ColorDMD or newer LCD. If you colorize this game, I am 100% keeping it.

I love this idea! For someone like my wife (who loves TOTAN and is the real reason I still own the game) she will never get to see any of the new modes because she doesn't come close to beating the current game. I really wish there was some way to introduce the new content without needing to complete all the old content. Maybe there could be a system setting that lets the user toggle whether to keep the modes locked until originals are beaten vs. being able to access them in the early game. This would be a way to keep the original vision for the code, but also make the cool new stuff accessible to everyone if desired.

Color looks awesome. I cannot read that one font at all though. I have no idea what half of the screens say. I get the Arabic vibe you're going for, but it kills that vibe if you can't tell what the screens say. At first I thought it was set on another language.

I'm not trying to be critical or telling you how to do your project, so please don't take it that way. As someone who's very interested in this project, I'm just saying that I literally can't tell if the words below are English. Are they? Some other screens like high scores I can sort of make out, but the dots make this font extremely difficult to tell what they say. I haven't watched all the videos, so not sure how much screen reading is necessary in the heat of the game, and whether this is the font used for mode instructions, etc. Just an observation.

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Really great to see your progress. Do you know if this would work with the ColorDMD hardware? I already have one installed in ToTAN, so that would be ideal. I'm sure I could resell it to someone if it is incompatible.

Love the idea of making some of the original modes more balanced, since some of them only took a couple shots. However, this makes it that much more difficult / unlikely to get to your new cool stuff.

To me: increasing the difficulty makes it even more important to allow access to the new modes before completing all of the old ones (not sure what your current thinking is on this). If you don't want all 14 available at once, the 7 new ones could be "level 2" on each of the jewels. So, initially all 7 original tales are assigned to their jewels. Then, if you beat cyclops, the cyclops jewel represents one of your new tales. This is how Stern Star Trek worked. You could either go for all 6 level 1 missions, or you could go up to 3 missions deep in a single category. This would add different strategies and keep all the tales fresh. It would also allow people to see old and some new tales without having to get super deep into the game.

What do those screens say? I've never really been able to read that font.

Game looks like it's coming along nicely. I'm hoping I get to try it out some day. Exciting that you're doing the "Star Trek" approach. What a great idea, I wish I had thought of that.

If there was a setting to change the font, that would be cool. I really like the "LOOK" of the font you're using, it feels very in theme of the game. But I just can't read it half the time. Sometimes I can figure it out if I look at it long enough, but obviously you don't have that kind of time during a game.