The game was surprisingly detailed for an arcade standup, particularly one this old. Andrew had expected maybe two or three preset playable characters, but he was presented with a full-blown character creation screen like in an RPG. Surveying his options, the thing that struck him was the false-vampire or Vampyrum race, which look more bat then human compared to the vampire race, which was also selectable. The Vampyrums could fly and were pretty agile, and they could see in the dark using echolocation. They were also capable of hypnotizing people, and using there victims to rise there health, by drinking there blood and even cannibalizing them. But they had only two fingers (and therefore could not use most weapons, only small blades like daggers) plus severe armor restrictions, and a weakness to sunlight.
But he also noticed the lonely heart class that had restrictions on many of the opponent’s attacks and the same aversion to light, and offered bonuses to unarmed combat and small blades, including a strong bonus to kicking that he expected would mesh nicely with the Vampyrum's clawed feet. Its one hang-up was it’s incapability to befriend people in the game, but with the Vampyrums hypnosis, that really shouldn't matter. And it had a agility bonus couldn't hurt either.
Given how much of an advantage flight was in most video games, especially side-scrollers, Andrew decided that the choice was obvious. He picked a lonely Vampyrum, and was asked to choose his character's sex. He thought about it for a while, then chose female. After all, if he was going to be looking at this character for the entire game, it might as well be a character worth looking at. He was a little surprised to see that characters with no armor equipped were portrayed as naked, but he figured there was probably a DIP switch for it somewhere; he recalled reading about a couple other old arcade games that had nude options. And he wasn't complaining.
At any rate, character creation was almost finished. He selected his character colors and was prompted to buy starting equipment. Unfortunately, because of the armor restrictions, the only thing he could both use and afford was a little amulet that summons a couple of magic daggers; handy, to be sure, since his character couldn't put them anywhere to hold, but it cost most of his starting money. Shrugging, he selected the "START GAME" option...and the machine exploded in a shower of sparks and acrid electrical smoke, knocking him unconscious.