Hey all, last night I finally beat oddtom's expert run, so I have some related thoughts for the leaderboard:

• Separating the platforms in different categories. The differences between the Windows and DOS version are significant enough that I'd be comfortable separating them. I beat the Expert category with extreme ease (a 21 min PR for me lol) using the Windows version, and by all rights it shouldn't have made it. If you ever get a chance to play the Windows version, it plays very different strategically, let alone being faster. The NES Legend of Zelda leaderboard is a good example how that might look.

• Adding a 100%/Full Game category (Voyager + Expert), as that is in the spirit of the game. I haven't completed a run of that yet, but might sometime this week. My first thought of it would be to allow the timer to pause (For a reasonable amount of time) between the end of Voyager and the start of Expert, because there's really no strategy involved with entering a new name.

• Adding a hardcore category. I've honestly never finished a game without taking a hit, but if I ever discover that it's possible, I think it'd be fun to add. If I could do the game blindfolded, I'd try that too.

• Removing the individual levels. I think they're too hard to time evenly and really not worth the effort. With all the above changes, the ILs might make the leaderboard too overburdened. I could be wrong though.

• Banning menu skip from now on. I know nobody has used it on a run yet, but I think it might provide too many opportunities to fake a run. It's far too easy to splice a segmented run using this, not that I've tried. It barely saves any time in either category, so I don't think that'll be an issue.

I could make these changes myself, but I want to get the community's input before I go about re-arranging all the rules/boards.

Lastly, some other news: I submitted my Voyager run to GDQ2020, so should hear back soon if it gets accepted. I know that's been a quiet community goal for awhile. After that though, I'll probably stop attempting the category until someone beats my latest time. Please do, I need the competition.

I'm also looking into making a TAS, which would allow us to answer a lot of questions about how the game works. If anybody has some experience, I'd appreciate the help.

I just saw the Voyager run- holy crow you've improved! Haven't looked at the Expert Mode yet. I was going to make a matching bullet point list, but I don't really have any argument with any of these.

I don't think the platforms are separated on any other TLC / Treasure game, but there is a huge difference for sure. I think my time over on Treasure MathStorm suffers bc I'm using an earlier version (the only one I happened to find for free online)

I swear I'm gonna give you some competition one of these days Ms Riley. You've breathed a lot of life back into this game, and I'm coming back for those times.

On paper, the Voyager category is about as optimized on both DOS and Windows as you're going to get without any new speedtechs. My runs suffer a lot, but I doubt the record will ever go drastically lower. Would love to see you try it again.

I'll make a few of the changes for now, including updating the rules.

Also I oppose auto-verifying my own runs on principle, so that's why I still wait to have them verified.

Anyways. I did the changes. I think it improves the board a lot.

Instead of only 2 categories, there's now 12. I doubt the hardcore ones will ever be competitive, unless multiple people get obscenely good at the game, but they provide a nice upper level challenge.