For those that want to use this while it's not updated yet but want to fix the pause crash, I've had luck with using the Unintrusive Pause Menu mod.

All you have to do is change the metadata for the pause mod so that it loads above Deep Labs (adding a couple ! in front of the name will do it) and (optionally) delete the completion widget sprite from the pause mod (it will work without doing this, but the completion note will be screwed up, deleting the sprite allows the deep labs one to load instead.

Some things of note that may or may not bother you:

- The main menu is still borked, but usable. Can't change options while the mod is enabled so you'll have to disable it to do so. Tab will take you to mods, Mods button on menu takes you to challenges.

- Versus screens don't load the mod animations (does load the sprites tho) but it doesn't crash. Mother versus is missing some animations, but otherwise is fine.

- Some new sprites that Deep Labs doesn't have load in as if the mod was disabled, but I haven't experienced any crashes from it yet.

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Hope this helps with anyone (like me :P) who want to keep using the mod for now. Thank you for continuing to work on it, it's honestly my favorite mod and I've been playing with it for a long while now! ^w^