Default Player

After showing the title screen dancing player select option on Twitter the other day, someone suggested that perhaps the girl should be the default player!

I debated for a few hours and then decided this was a good idea!  I've not done this as some kind of feminism based altruism, even though it was pointed out that even little choices like this in support of women can go a long way.

The actual reason for making the change is to differentiate Chiller 2 from the original game.  In 1984 you played as the boy out to rescue the girl by collecting blue crosses and after playing through the levels and "rescuing" the girl, you then had to play through the levels backwards as both the boy and the girl, with the girl collecting pink crosses.  Hmmm... does seem a little 1980's to me.

Thus, in 2019 you can select to be either girl or boy at the start and both characters have to collect yellow crosses.  That seems a bit more "modern" to me.  As for playing levels backwards when all levels are complete:  I may still incorporate this in my game.  I may also do a character switch on last level completion so you have to play as both characters anyway.  Since the girl and boy have slightly different in-game characteristics, this will perhaps extend the gameplay, providing a bit more of a challenge?

Someone also suggested using some character names (Tina and Tom) on the title screen instead of "girl" and "boy".  The only problem is the characters are called "Michael" and "Michaela" and that doesn't fit on the screen!  Those names do appear in the brief instructions in the "scrolling" message.

So after a quick code rearrangement, the girl is now selected by default on first load.

Next diary entry...