In this paper, we continue the study of the domination game in graphs introduced by Brešar, Klavžar, and Rall [SIAM J. Discrete Math. 24 (2010) 979–991]. We study the total version of the domination game and show that these two versions differ significantly. We present a key lemma, known as the Total Continuation Principle, to compare the Dominator-start total domination game and the Staller-st...