EDIT: AvrorA found an even better way to get the older version. See his comment near the bottom of the first page.

Hello everyone,

I am, just like a lot of you, not really happy with the new visuals. While I personally wouldn't fully blame Amanita (they're just being too nice and trying not to have their game associated with such symbolism), I simply don't feel the same when playing the "orange" version. Something just doesn't click. It feels... off. And I honestly wanted to give it a chance.

Originally posted by Amanita Design:

As a team of peace-minded creative people, we simply do not want any of our games and characters even remotely associated with racism or any other form of hate crime.

That being said, I have this game on multiple platforms (GOG, Humble Bundle library, Steam and a physical copy that was sold bundled with the soundtrack in the Czech Republic some time ago). For the record, I own multiple copies of every Amanita game.

I just wanted to give you a heads-up that, unlike Humble and Steam, GOG still has the original version available. Get it while you still can and enjoy the game in the way it was originally meant to be played.

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Just by the way, to everyone calling us a bunch of... well, whatever for complaining:

I am glad you exist to balance the discussion out a bit. I just figured I could tell you something about my perspective, so you get a fuller picture. I do not represent everyone complaining here, so even though I'm going to make some generalisations, these might not always apply. I'm not going to bring up SJW, PC, censorship, democracy, artistic freedom and such buzzwords. These are repeated so much that they don't contribute anything meaningful anymore.

I am usually the one to defend developer decisions in such discussions, so I know what it's like to be surrounded by a bunch of complaining people who you can't make sense of initially. I remember discussing the new season of Doctor Who, for example. While I agree many of us take this too far, I think it's fair to voice our opinion and say we're not happy about this. Lying that we love everything is about as useful a feedback as saying: "You spineless bastards ruined the world."

I mean, it's not exactly minor when you change the color of your protagonist in a game that appears to be aesthetically based on him contrasting with, well, everything. There was a reason for choosing the colour they initially went with. These people are artists first. I have a hard time believing the choice wasn't important for their design. And as an almighty Czech speaker, I can tell you that on the somewhat vague scale of chuchel-ness, the black chuchel appears a lot more chuchel-y.

So... I just can't bring myself to like this version more, no matter how hard I try. And I don't like the idea that I would have to actively force myself to like something that lacks the original appeal to me (which by the way wasn't based on the alleged racial features at all), just in order to be viewed as a progressive and tolerant individual.

I mean, see how many disclaimers et cetera I had to use in the introductory paragraph to this pseudo-essay just out of sheer fear of being called intolerant, stupid and "trying to speak for others without understanding them".

What we're dealing with here is first world problems producing more first world problems. It's an exaggerated reaction to a problem that was exaggerated on its own. And I believe we all have more important things to do, I mean, it's only been a day or so. It's not like we're arguing about this for months or weeks.

I think most of us just kind of hope that if we show them we really liked the older version, they could possibly add an option to play the older version even after GOG gets the update. We're not entitled to anything, nor do we own the rights just because we paid a couple of dollars. But we are still human beings and we can still hope, if nothing else. Not everyone is lucky enough to get their hands on it before it's too late and a huge chunk of the magic, no matter how subjective that is, got lost for me – and I believe for many others, too.

My little brother is confused and doesn't want to play the new version, because he simply liked the old one better. You can't convince me a child does this out of hatred and political reasons.

He bought the plushie at "Hračkobraní" (a toy event) and he even got Chuchel painted on his face there. That's just to demonstrate that we really don't know about blackface. We deal with different kinds of racism in Czechia as we have different ethnic groups living here. I mean, our president actively supports the idea that Romani people are lazy parasites. Some politicians go even further and call them thieving lazy parasites and a security threat to our nation. Vietnamese people are often dismissed as a nation of shopkeepers. These are real issues that still exist, not some constructed imaginary ones. The idea of someone feeling offended by non-present symbolism is hard to understand for us and requires some mental gymnastics, so please don't jump to conclusions so fast.

So, I just don't want you to think we're all idiots complaining for the sake of complaining. It just doesn't feel right when someone takes something you liked and changes it all of a sudden. There's a reason I'm making backup copies now. It's because I care. Because I love the old design and don't feel the same way about the new one. And the complaints are made because we, or so I believe, subconsciously feel that if all it took to change it was a couple of clickbaity articles, we could get the old Chuchel back in some form if we tried hard enough.

Some of us are here just to complain, yes. But some of us are here because we believe we can still make a change.