How can I change the default script for my player character when creating a new game?

I'm new to making games on Playdate Pulp. When making a new game, is there a way to change the default script for your player character? Because I feel like his movement is kind of stiff, and I don't know whether or not I want my game to be a top-down game like it is in the default game.

Short answer: With difficulty

Long answer: You can't change the default movement logic, but you can override it.

The key to overriding Pulp's default movement behaviour is with the player's update event. This gets called whenever the player attempts to move but is called after any actual movement. You will need to track the player's position independently, compare the player's intended position to their actual position, and then "correct" it if necessary in every update with a goto.

I wrote something like this for this prototype and could try and cut out an example project if that is useful.

Depending on exactly what you are trying to achieve you might find it easier to just be clever with what tiles are solid and item tiles that call gotos - for example you can quickly and easily have a "side scrolling" screen by just putting the player in a single horizontal line of non-solid tiles.

Keep in mind that Pulp is specifically made for making top-down tile based games. If you move away from that significantly, be prepared to pay for it in code and quite probably performance (which is hard to judge without an actual console!).