Released Mods

So, this was my first modded module! After my third soundpack, I had the notion to make a module. After a few failed attempts (which I still have on my computer), someone on Discord named Obvious helped me create this module - we thought it might be easiest to make a module that uses edgework conditions, so that’s what we did.

This module was actually loosely inspired by a scene from the movie Spectre - there’s this red button that starts a countdown to a building’s detonation, which I thought was cool. I dunno.

To solve the module, the expert needs to obtain a number using the manual. Then the defuser has to press the button to start a timer, then press it again when the number shows up.

I quite like it. As my first module, I think we did quite well.

I had the idea for this module the day after I released Tell Me When. It presents three 8-digit numbers that are part of an arithmetic sequence, and you are tasked with finding the missing fourth number. I don’t like it very much, but it’s not terrible.

I do like how the module looks, though! It looks like it was made by me, even after all this time. The display glitches slightly, which is a nice touch. It also ties into my fictional company, GS Electronics & Co.™.

This was actually the first time I hid an Easter egg in a module (even though I later added one to Tell Me When). Submitting 69420666, or any permutation of 69, 420 and 666, causes the module to… Actually, it’s best if you try that yourself. :D

Can’t remember much about this one, honestly. It’s based on The Hexabutton [other module] and follows roughly the same structure as other button mods. Hold the button at a specific time, and release it at a specific time.

I think it’s a good module. The hold calculations are creative, and the base itself lighting up looks really cool.

The solve sound comes from one of Chris Ramsay’s puzzle box videos, but I can’t remember which. I’ll link to it if I find it.

A needy module! Needy modules aren’t solvable and are recurring threats that need to be dealt with in a time limit. Nobody really plays with them in modded KTaNE, they’re a little impractical for challenge bombs [bombs with 47 modules - they fit evenly on the Quadruple Decker case]. I like them, though, and would like people to play with them more often. Anyway! I’m getting sidetracked.

This needy’s inspiration is the DS game of the same name. The game has these cool backgrounds that I thought might be fun to identify.

But because the module has moving images, its file size was (and still is) huge. It’s okay, I guess, but there are better needies out there.

Now we’re getting to the good stuff! This module was inspired by the game 9-Ball, and the Nintendo Switch game 51 Worldwide Games. Wish I knew why. Inspiration is weird.

But whatever! The module turned out great. In this module, certain balls have been potted in the break, and the defuser must select these balls, then pot the rest in ascending order. Simple, and a good solo.

I think I got a little help from Obvious for this one, like the others, but this module felt more like something I was making, not something Obvious was helping me with. Past this point, everything is pretty much my own work (besides collabs).

I could write this section in Bottom Gear speak, but… nah.

So remember when I said that inspiration is weird, when talking about 9-Ball? …Yeah, that applies here. Umm. What can I say. It’s a module based on a YouTube video that I found funny. Pffff.

I can’t even justify it by saying it was for April Fool’s Day, because it was released in the November of 2020. Not that the module is bad, or anything, it’s just… weird.

To solve it, you have to look up an extract of text in the manual, then submit the one that comes after it. If you know how the video goes, then it’s a solo. I know I made it bad on purpose, but I did the whole “so bad it’s good” way better in its sequels. Yes, it has sequels. Only one of them was for April Fool’s. Aaaaargh.

Oh, and the code has variables like ThisIsTheTextThatIsDisplayedOnTheModule. Just cuz. Sip sip.

Ahh, a breath of fresh air. I think. Maybe.

This is my second needy! It’s pretty simple, as my needies tend to be. When it activates, press the button. Simple. The problem is, you only have five seconds to do so. Furthermore, it’ll randomly play activation sounds. (This can all be changed in its mod settings, but whatev.)

No real inspiration for this one, other than noticing that a mod like this didn’t exist yet.

It’s fine. A bit tedious, but fine. I like how it looks.

The one thing I remember most about this module is struggling to come up with ideas for it. I made a grid of buttons and a submit button, expecting to come up with a mod idea later, but it took me a while to land on something that I liked.

You can notice an increase in quality with this module, compared to my others. I had a fair amount of modding experience by the time I made it.

This mod also has an Easter egg. I’ll leave it to you to find it. :D

This one’s quite good, I think.

It’s a variant of Tell Me When, as you can see. Rather than just pressing the button, though, you have to hold and release it at certain times, according to the numbers on the display. While I think the solving mechanism is good, the holding / releasing mechanic is painful when both defusing and experting at the same time (EFMing — Experting For Myself).

I think I was planning on making variant mods out of all of my modules, but that didn’t stick for too long.

Also, there’s an easter egg in this one. Nothing too special, though.

This one’s not so good. :)

This is Entry Number Four, but instead of working out the fourth in the sequence, you have to work out the first. And the screen is upside down. Yippee.

Yeah… I don’t like this one.

Okay. Things get way better after Entry Number One, don’t worry. Although, I need to mention this needy first.

I released this one on Christmas, as a Christmas special, and it’s pretty simple. When a line in the carol “The 12 Days of Christmas” appears, you need to enter its corresponding number. For example, “Turtle doves” would be 2.

Pretty straightforward and doesn’t overstay its welcome. I like it!

By the way, the mistletoe on the warning stickers is from another module called Festive Piano Keys.

I’m very proud of this one, and if all of my modules before it were part of a Season 1, this would be the start of a Season 2.

This module started as just a prefab, like Ternary Tiles. It was kind of an excuse to have a module that begins with X (the “The” doesn’t count). I found making a manual for it very difficult, and asked Obvious for help. We came up with an idea — I’ll make the visuals for The Xenocryst, and Obvi will make the manual and help me with the code. But in return, I’ll have to make the manual for one of her modules, which is now Stacked Sequences.

I feel like making this module definitely improved my prefab-making skills. There’s a bunch of animations that I made in the code — the swirly lights behind the black hole, the black hole’s jittering, the movements of the xenocryst and the solve animation. While I added some quality-of-life improvements a couple years after I made it, it’s very impressive that we managed to make it.

(The QOL improvements were visual / audio cues for holding / releasing the xenocryst, and a nerf for the input.)

Any of my modules can be solo’ed [solved without the team members with the manuals] if you know the manual well enough, but this was the first module that I designed to be a solo.

It’s a great solo! You start by pressing any of the buttons, and they will each change to either white or black. Using these colours, you have to press another one of the buttons, generating a new grid, etc., until five grids have been dealt with.

Besides Bottom Gear, my mods so far have been realistic-looking, but this module kicked off a new style for me — futuristic, abstract modules. I think it looks good.

The name is weird, but has an origin. You know how the module has five stages? Well, back when I first made the module, it used to have — you guessed it — eighty-one stages! This was obviously incredibly unreasonable, so for release, I reduced it to a totally-not-tedious thirty stages! (Oh my God, what was I thinking??)

The community got a tad angry about it, and for good reason, so I reduced it to the five we all know and enjoy today. This story is referenced in the flavour text:

“Sounds like a misnomer for stage count, if you ask me…”

Banger after banger! It’s almost as if [Verbose description of how practice works expunged.]!

The manual for this module is my first story manual! Except for Bottom Gear. Shoo.

The premise behind the module is that you have just stolen from the mansion of a wealthy family, but have triggered the security system, and must escape in the dark, with the help of your wrist device. The story isn’t necessary to solve the module, but it’s pretty cool.

I quite like how this module looks — the lit-up wood background looks great! Fun fact: I first tried creating that effect with a light source, but it didn’t look very good, so I used an unlit shader! That means that the entire background is technically glow-in-the-dark.

The solving mechanism is good, and not too complicated. No complaints here.

The one thing I’m most proud of about this module is its solving mechanism. First of all, you have to solve it before all other modules (except ignored modules, and other Access Codes). Second, it’s easier if you have modded widgets, which incentivises people to use them (they’re extremely underutilised, and I wish more people used them). And third, the solving process without modded widgets is super cool! You have to form a sequence of six letters one-by-one, but each obtained letter makes the process slightly harder for the letters after it (if that makes any sense). Super proud of it!

By the way, the background colour is random! :D

I remember there being some big controversy when I released this module, so much so that I removed it for a short while, before everyone calmed down and I reuploaded it. Something to do with the solving first mechanic, if I recall correctly.

This one’s strange, and I don’t remember very much about it, except that it was meant as a harder variant of Knob [needy module]. Instead of one knob, it has two!

It’s probably my weakest needy, but it’s still okay. I like the invalid position mechanic — it requires some planning to avoid.

One interesting thing I can remember about it is that the displays don’t use rectangular sprites for the binary positions, but instead, a font! Thought that was pretty cool.

Another banger solo! This module has lore, too — you’re a tourist who’s going to see a volcano, and need to cross over a lava stream using the floating stone slabs. Except, you want to walk a path, such that all of the slabs fall into the lava, and you end at the bottom-right. That’s to cut off the path for the person behind you, as they’ve been very mean.

The module was loosely inspired by Numerical Knight Movement [module], and I think it’s great! It’s good-looking, and a fun puzzle!

My first module pack! Modules are:

• Directing Buttons [bottom-right]
• The first module in the module pack, and the only one in it on release. It’s pretty simple — the coloured buttons form a path around the grid, and you need to press the first button in the path. I like it, even if it is a bit simple.
• Fun fact: the background of all of these modules is a blurred, monochrome edit of one of Space Invaders Extreme’s backgrounds! (Specifically, the one with all the arrows.)
• Uncoloured Buttons [top-right]
• The second in the pack. A little more involved than Directing Buttons — each row refers to a specific button, using binary; take the colours of these four buttons, and press the button that they refer to, as binary. Quite cool, and a little beefier than Directing!
• Faulty Buttons [top-middle]
• Ehhhh… This one’s not a solo, unlike the others (unless you have an amazing memory). All you do is note which button refers to which, and press them in the order that they refer to each other in. Not a fan, and doesn’t fit with the rest.
• Surrounding Buttons [top-left]
• Now this is more like it. Move a certain number of buttons, starting with the top-left, then keep moving until you’ve marked six of them. Movement sizes depend on the colours of the buttons. Pretty neat, and turned out exactly how I wanted it to!
• Jumbled Buttons [bottom-left]
• Directing Buttons, but spicy! Two of the buttons in a Directing Buttons puzzle have been swapped, and you first have to unswap them, before solving the puzzle. Very hard, sometimes, but an excellent defuser solo.
• Switching Buttons [bottom-middle]
• Proud of this one, but it didn’t have a solving mechanism for the longest time. Each button has a pair of colours, but one colour pair appears twice, and one doesn’t appear at all. Using these pairs, obtain another colour pair, and press the button with that pair. It’s cool how the math plays out here, and it guarantees that the required pair is neither a duplicate or missing pair. It’s awesome! :D

Dear God, there’s more. At least it was an April Fool’s thing.

I mean, it’s fine? Just… meh. You have to identify a quote from a YouTube video, and submit a series of holds and releases. Kinda basic, but the solved image / sound are quite funny. It’s a poorly-cropped picture of the number 2 pasted onto the Bottom Gear logo, and Bottom Gear’s solve sound with an extra “two” added. Well, either it’s funny, or my sense of humour needs to see a doctor.

Oh, well. Moving on.

My first maze module of many. Quite cleverly, this module doesn’t actually use a traditional maze-generation algorithm — instead, it assembles a set of four 2×2 maze bits into a 4×4 maze, which you then have to convert into a four-digit code! I think this is a clever mechanic for younger me to have invented.

I have a slight gripe with the visuals, though. The buttons are cubes, for one. The background choice could’ve been better, although it’s not too bad. My biggest issue is with the display, though — the shapes have different stroke sizes, which is annoying. Might fix that in the future, who knows.

Oh, and there’s an easter egg in this one, too, but I’ll leave it to you to find it! :)

I had an idea for a Layton Identification module, and decided that it would be about identifying puzzles, and so Puzzle Identification was born.

There was a problem, though. How are you supposed to know what game the puzzle is from? I considered colouring the text on the display, but decided on having the module play each game’s puzzle music, and I think that was the best decision.

ID mods are generally uninspired and boring, but the music mechanic and Layton sound effects bring this module together.

Probably another one of my weaker modules, but I know some people like it. There’s this topic in Maths (can’t remember if it was in Maths or Further Maths, but it was in GCSE) that deals with straight lines, and their equations. I thought that might make a cool module, so I implemented it.

I mean, it’s fine? Just boring, in my opinion, and not that visually interesting. Meh.

The background reminds me of Chinatown from Professor Layton and the Lost Future, by the way. I think that’s because I was listening to its theme while making it. Shrug.

And after that momentary lapse in quality, back to the good stuff!

This loosely fits into a series of Minesweeper modules, but it’s not a variant. You have to find the walls of a maze, using Minesweeper clues that tell you the number of walls around each cell, then navigate it.

Considering my skill level at the time, it’s quite impressive! This is my first module that uses a maze-generation algorithm (ignoring Maze ID), and its code is quite messy, but I’m really proud of it!

There was a small rework recently that made the module much better. First, it changed how the screen displays numbers — it used to use a texture and offsets to create the cut-off effect, but now it uses a Canvas with a Mask. Second, the font on the cooldown display is the same font as the number display. Third, the maze generator is different, and it can now generate cells with 0’s. Fourth, the random suspense when entering the solution has been removed. And lastly, the animations run properly on 144Hz monitors.

This one’s okay, and has a solid premise. It’s a keypad module, but the orientations of the keys play into the solving process, which is quite straightforward.

I like the way it looks — it doesn’t try too hard to stand out. I wish it had a little more in the solving process, though.

A pretty overlooked Simon Says variant, which I don’t get. Each new stage, the colours of the buttons change, and affect the colours that need to be pressed.

I’m not a fan of its appearance, though — especially the buttons. They use a section of the backing texture as their textures. Cool on paper, but not appealing in practice. The solving process sells it to me, though, I like it.

A personal favourite of mine! There was a KTaNE modding jam with the theme “Unusual Interaction”, and I had a prefab lying around, so I decided to make an entry, and it turned out great! Didn’t win, though. Sob.

You can’t see the best bit of the module in its preview image, though. When you press “Ready”, a floating sphere materialises, and you have to hover over it to enter numbers. It’s a really cool mechanic.

I’ve made bad mods before this point, but this is the start of my first dark age.

I was a fan of The Stanley Parable, despite not having played the game. There was this one bit in the demo — the 8 button, and I thought it would make a good module. At first, I decided to have it make the defuser press the button a certain number of times before each solve. How many times? The number of solves, plus one. This was a very bad idea, as on a Centurion, the last solve would make you press the button over 100 times! This wouldn’t be so bad if the button didn’t have a whole animation to go through each time you pressed it. Fun!

Thankfully, I released an update that significantly nerfed the module. Now, it only requires 8 presses per solve. Much better. It has a Legacy Mode, though, if the previous mechanic hit the spot for you.

It’s... eh. I dunno, it depends on the other modules on the bomb.

The dark age continues with another Tell Me When variant! This one’s not too egregious, though, but it’s a little generic at this point.

You have to form a string of symbols and compare it against the one the module gives you, to determine when to press the button. It’s fine, but not at my standard.

And then, the end of the dark age, and my worst module in my eyes. It has a cool concept, at least. You have to listen to the sounds going on underneath the module in its nine segments, to get some numbers — these segments point to each other, and you need to follow the chain of references to find three segments to tap.

Way too similar to Faulty Buttons, for me. And also, kinda broken!

Okay, end of the dark age. Phew.

First off, this module looks great! The static on the display fits in nicely, and the colour scheme works. It may have defined my style as it is today.

Second, it’s got a great solving process. There’s a 4×4 grid of 2-digit numbers, and a maze on top that you can’t see. While the numbers are visible, the module won’t let you walk into walls. There are three pairs of numbers in the grid; you have to find them and navigate a path in the maze between them, trying not to walk into walls.

It’s a very creative concept, and a personal favourite of mine.

A nifty little pair of solo modules. I’ve made a lot of solos, and I don’t know why.

These modules are based off two puzzles in Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy: Dial Trial and Dial Trial 2. To solve them, rotate the dials, so that every quadrant sums to the same number. It’s explained easily, but in some cases, very difficult.

I remember spending a fair amount of time modelling the dials and making the SVG for the manual, because cogs are weird.

I think this is my first released module that uses a normal map [texture]! That’s cool.

Took me a surprisingly short amount of time to make, but it’s one of my favourites!

I had a hyperfixation on cellular automata, about the time I made this, and I just kept thinking about things like Conway’s Game of Life, Brian’s Brain, and of course, Langton’s Ant. One day, I thought of a variant: there’s an ant, and once they move one step, an anteater spawns where they just were. They continue moving, until they land on the same cell, in which case the same is eaten. However, this only works on a finite, toroidal grid with at least one of its dimensions being odd — otherwise, they’ll never land on the same square.

I then had the idea of making it into a module, using the prefab of Langton’s Ant [module] as a basis, since its grid is 5×5.

More Bottom Gear! Except this one’s actually good.

I made the prefab for this a good while before it released, but I picked it up again to release it on April Fool’s, as tradition states. I was a bit late on that, though. The button on the top, when held, plays three voice clips from the video Bottom Gear 3. At the same time. And to make things harder, a bass-boosted version of the Top Gear theme plays while the module is selected. I know what the sounds are because I made the module, but for everyone else, it’s very difficult.

Didn’t take very long to make. Like, maybe a day or two. That’s because the prefab for this needy is from Validation [module].

The premise is simple: stop the needle in the green zone. Hitting the yellow zone is fine, but won’t disarm the needy. Hitting the red zone, however will cause a strike and deactivate the needy.

It’s very difficult and only really suitable for bombs with 11 modules. Hell, it still gave me grief on Work Experience, a solo bomb with 11 modules. Half of my failed attempts were on Puzzle Panel, the other half were on this.

A fine solo, based off a maths fact that one of my Maths teachers gave me:

“Pick any four unique numbers between 1 and 9. Use all four numbers to get to 24, using addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. There’s always a way to do it.”

It turns out that that’s not true! I thought it was, but I had to check, so I found a list of all the solutions, and found some with no solutions! (The module has a blacklist, so these don’t come up.)

There were a few that did some weird things that the module didn’t allow, too. One group of numbers had only one solution, where you divide by a fraction. Neat, but not possible on the module.

By the way, the prefab is from Countdown [module], and the sounds are from Creation [module] and Countdown.

Quite a fun solo! At this point, I was releasing loads of solos. I actually didn’t intend for this to be a solo, but whatev.

I made the prefab for this module aaaages ago. Back when Crazy Hamburger was still a relevant meme. A year or two later, I cane up with a solving process, and it all came together.

Each ingredient has its own unique rules that determine if the hamburger is crazy. For example, Oil from Iraq checks the second-last and third-last ingredients, and if they’re the same, the burger is crazy. I made Grass of Death trigger if it is the tenth ingredient or more to prevent generations of this module that take ages to solve.

More solos! This one also dates back a while, but unlike Crazy Hamburger… it was finished. I just… didn’t think it was polished enough, and that people wouldn’t like it. Obviously, that’s not true. :)

It’s based off of a minigame from Super Mario Party, where you have to keep track of the positions of certain suits, as they shuffle about. It’s cool. Not the best module ever, but cool.

God I love this one. It’s just so… cool.

All you have to do to solve this module is play Picture Poker, until you have 100+ coins. It’s meant to be this thing you have going in the background, while you tend to other modules, and it hits that mark reasonably well. It works great on solo bombs!

My favourite part of this module, though, is how it looks. It uses the assets from New Super Mario Bros. and animates them exactly like the original, it’s sooo cool. Took me a while to make, though. I even replicated Luigi’s behaviour! :D

I’m missing a few sound effects, though. If you have the coin win / loss sounds, win / draw / loss sounds and Hold / Draw button press sound, please let me know and I’ll add them to the module. I think they all use a soundfont.

My favourite needy! The rules are simple: navigate small mazes to add time to the countdown on the needy, which cannot be deactivated. Walking into one wall in a maze removes 20 seconds from the countdown, walking into two causes a strike and deactivates the needy. Simple, but effective.

Wow, I’ve released loads of solos. Anyway.

This module is based off of another Layton puzzle from Azran Legacy. Well, more of a puzzle series, from the Daily Puzzle section. You have to match groups of four different adjacent elements to remove them from the board, causing the ones above to fall. Clear the board to win. Not very challenging, most of the time.

Credits go to Obvious for helping me with the puzzle generation!

Fiiiinally. A non-solo. Layton-themed, of course.

I’m really proud of this one! It replicates the tea set minigame from Professor Layton and Pandora’s Box, and it does it amazingly well! I have the game, so I used it to see how the animations should look, what the dialogue should be, etc.

You have to make bad tea for Layton and Luke and see what they say about it, to make them three tea recipes. The solving mechanism is great, and I’m glad people like it.

Fun fact: the solving animation uses the equations of motion, for the leap into the air that the… DS… thing… does.

I watched a YouTube video from the channel No Rolls Barred, where they play Yahtzee, but blindfolded, and kind of like the card game Cheat. I thought it was a really creative ruleset, so I decided to try it with my younger brother. It was so fun, I wanted to make a module out of it! (I lost the game, by the way.)

You have to play five rounds of Blindfolded Yahtzee against the module — you can’t see what the module rolls, and it will claim to have a certain hand: you have to guess if it’s telling the truth or lying.

It’s quite good! One thing I like about it is that it’s a black-and-white version of Yahtzee [module], and that black-and-white aesthetic continues into the manual!

This one’s been sitting on my computer for a good while, because it was really broken. I did manage to fix it, though, and here it is!

It’s really cool, and I don’t get why more people don’t use it. It asks questions that you’ve added beforehand, or questions specified by the mission you’re playing. Its intended purpose is to let you revise for exams, while playing KTaNE, although it’s quite limited — it can only ask multiple choice questions and true / false questions.

This needy spawned from a mod idea in the KTaNE Discord server — when active, set the display to the amount of time remaining on the bomb. Quite a cool idea, and works well as a needy!

A strategy for it is encouraged — try to set the time, such that it will deactivate with 10 or less seconds on the countdown. That way, it’ll activate less overall.

These modules are based off of some minigames from a game show called Beat the Brain, that I have huge nostalgia for. Modules are:

• Winning Line [top-left]
• This minigame is from the Memory zone, and it involves you memorising a Naughts and Crosses grid as the symbols appear in triplets. It’s quite fun, although I had to significantly buff it, as the original minigame was far too easy. It’s animated quite well, but the code’s a mess. :)
• Catch Me if You Can [bottom-left]
• From the Observation zone. A car will briefly be visible, and you have to remember its numberplate. Quite difficult, actually! No buffs were needed. I love how it looks more than anything, though, and the trace of the background of the minigame is quite good!
• Catch Me if You Can [bottom-right]
• From the Orientation zone. A car will enter from the bottom, and perform a series of turns. You need to find what direction it faces at the end. A little easy, even with buffs. I had to trace the car, and I think I did quite well with that!

A solo module that I put some serious effort into!

I first had the idea, “What if I make a solo module that tells you how to solve it, if you forget?”, then “What if I make a solo module that has a bunch of unorthadox operations to perform on some numbers?” So I smushed those ideas together, and ended up with this!

You have to reach a default of 20 points by doing calculations on one / two twelve-digit number(s), and the amount of points you earn for a specific calculation is balanced by difficulty. For example, Equality is worth 2 points, because all you do is type the number shown. Altitude, however, is worth 7, because it’s much more involved.

It had been a while since I made a realistic, grungy module, so I decided to do just that with this one, and give it some lore to boot. Its a repurposed cash register, and was made before standards for module size were in place, so it doesn’t quite fit on the bomb. I think it looks great!

If you forget what an operation does, you can use the HELP button to have it explained. My only gripe with this button is my attempt at voice acting, but the radio effect I gave the sound clips in Audacity makes up for it. It also hides the nasty ground loop my microphone had.

When it came to adding operations to the module, I asked for help from Obvious, and she did some cool stuff with classes and factories that made my life a lot easier.

It came out great, and I’m glad people liked it! :D

Spontaneously had an idea for a cellular automaton, and implemented it in two days, if I recall correctly. I’m proud of how it turned out!

It’s Conway’s Game of Life, but in a 3D formation. The corners have 6 neighbouring cells, the rest have 8.

My favourite part is the wiggle animation the formation does! It was inspired by 4D Maze [module], and it uses a bunch of trigonometry.