This is something I have been planning on doing for a while. Bascially the original plan, dating back to 2008 was to update all of the levels in The Resurrection of Devan shell to work with jj2+ and use its features, where appropriate (death pits and fast level transitions in cutscene levels, basically). This update would be uploaded separately to j2o as a patch, so the original uploads remained compatible with non-plus jj2.

As I looked over the levels though, I realized that there are a lot of things I don't like in them. Many of them have unfair enemy placement, or too many enemies, or an uneven difficulty level. Some of them seem amateurish. I want to fix all of these things.

Here is a nice list of what I have planned:

• rebalance difficulty, moving some enemies to hard mode, deleting some entirely, and adding a few in places where it's appropriate (usually in clever positions)
• some areas are simply too hard or unfair - these need to be addressed (hard mode will likely stay as it is, normal mode will be a little bit easier). Ep5 is the worst offender here
• many levels have too many enemies. Extraneous enemies (ones that add nothing to the difficulty and just make the gameplay slower) will get deleted. For example, I used way too many float lizards in a lot of places.
• some levels have too many pickups (a few in ep5 are particularly egregious). These will also be removed
• JJ2+ death pits will be used. Also, in cutscene levels or ones with no real gameplay, "fast" exits will be used instead of normal ones. This update will be plusonly
• Will probably rewrite some dialogue, some of it might use reworder to use more than 128 chars. Story won't change - I'll just make things worded better and more clearly.
• Remove painful purple place as a standalone, and make it a secret level somewhere. Probably hidden at the beginning of one of the episodes, since the level requires you to start with no ammo.
• Polish. I'm a better designer than I was all those years ago, or even two years ago when I made the last episode. Also, time allows me to look back and see my mistakes more clearly. I want to make each and every level as close to perfect as I can.

With that said, there's more that I can do. For example, I've thought about splitting the larger levels into smaller ones, to make saving a bit less likely to crash. I probably won't do this though, since it's too hard and messes up the gem collection system I have. There is one level in ep5 I might split though.

Another possibility is to add a few secret/bonus levels, just to make things interesting, and give people something to look for. JJ2+ makes this really easy.

Anyway, now that I've said all of this, I want your feedback. Specifically, if there is anything you want me to change, what is it? If there is something you want, this is the best time to suggest something. Be as specific or as vague as you want to. Or, of the things I've mentioned, are there any you object to? I'd like to know that too! Also, what do you think of this in general? I'm making this update mostly for myself, but it would be interesting to know what other people think.

(As for an ETA, I can't give you one yet. This is part update and part revamp... I'm basically playing each level and making edits as I go)