Do the conditions for each bomb module change with every new revision of the manual?
Having played quite a few of the levels in Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, there's always that small feeling of excessive repetition with easier modules such as simple wires, buttons and the like. Even if I'm not looking at the manual, I can also easily remember things like some possible combinations of complicated wires and whether or to cut them.
Due to this, I've been increasingly curious about the manual. If a new one is ever to be released, I can imagine that it would most likely be to add something completely new to the game. But what about the other modules? Do the existing modules change in terms of the instructions and criteria to defuse them?
Do these change with every revision of the manual?
Vanilla (the original game)
Per one of the creators' talks at GDC, the rules in the manual and the game were procedurally generated to ensure that they were consistent within the same version. In theory, this could have been used to alter the game to produce a variety of rules. However, the version of the manual that is currently available (version 1, with verification code 241) has been stable since at least the official launch of the game, and is unlikely to ever change as the creators have expressed little interest in changing the way the game plays. This would be especially important given the large number of platforms the game can be played on using the same manual.
Mods
The Steam version of the game is compatible with user-generated content, and as of writing there are about 850 modded modules that can be added to the game. Some of these modules are designed to resemble the ones in the original game but with some kind of twist (e.g. "Third Base" is "Who's On First" but all the buttons are combinations of characters like N, X and 8 and the module itself is rotated 180 degrees), while others are entire puzzles in their own rights.
Rule Seed
Additionally, one other piece of user-generated content for the game is the Rule Seed Modifier. About 72 of the modded modules and 12 of the vanilla modules are compatible with this. When using the Rule Seed Modifier, you choose a number (the seed) which then alters the rules within those 84 modules. For example, using a rule seed of 2 the Morse Code manual contains a completely different list of words to that found in the original manual. It also prominently displays the rule seed at the top of the page, so that your experts know they aren't using the standard manual.
Looking at the revision log, this doesn't seem to be the case. Comparing Revision 2 and Revision 3 in terms of the conditions for each module, nothing has changed.
The log also states this:
Version 1, Revision 3
- On the Subject of Morse Code: Improved Morse code table to include easier to understand instructions on interpreting Morse code.
- Improved compatibility of web version with Internet Explorer and Wii U.
Version 1, Revision 2
- On the Subject of Complicated Wires: Removed "Otherwise" case and replaced with "C" in the Venn diagram.
It's possible that the modules might change throughout different versions of the manual, though this isn't yet certain.