Thanks for the feedback, and thanks for the VOD link!
I'm not sure about a full Potato rebranding, but I can give it some thought. It is true that the Potatostrike alone has gained far more attention than the game ever did on its own, so it's worth looking into it. However, even just adding a full Potato mode will take a moderate amount of time, as I'd have to make unique models for all enemy ships in the game, and there's over 30 of them at this point.
I can look into replacing the projectile models for something more visually pleasing. I've actually looked into this a few times in the past, but never quite committed to doing it for a multitude of reasons. I'll try to have it ready for the next patch, 1.3.9, but it will most likely have to wait for the following one. Here's an early look of what I've got so far during testing:
The Campaign is not divided into stages, but the world has a total of 8 Areas you can explore. There's a total of 8 fully unique backgrounds, and 9 variations of those backgrounds. Each background is tinted with coding to fit the area you're in, and most variations add a large number to the background, indicating which area you're in. For example, Area 1 would be tinted green and display 0-1 on some rooms.
This was done mostly due to budget constraints; pixel artists often charge by size, and backgrounds by design are pretty large images. I've wanted to get new backgrounds for some time now, I even have contacted an artist on Mastodon about it, but without a way to cover the expenses there's not much I can do, unfortunately.