so why did you wonder around a bunch and then start the timer? is that like the menu or something...kind of confusing watchign from the outside. Love the meme of home alone games so any insight would be great

It probably does look kind of strange, doesn't it? You're right- when I go to the menu, I'm to restarting the game. The music stutters and starts over and the sprites refresh, but the background doesn't change as you might normally expect. The reason is that there's no definitive "starting" spot; in any new game, your character will be placed in the position where he was when the last game ended. An alternative to hitting "restart" is allowing the burglars to wander through the house and catch you, but the result is the same- you'll just have to go through the ending scenes first. Check it out here: https://classicreload.com/home-alone.html