#thok

Hakann is a bully and a manipulator, so his mental attacks and heat vision are pretty unsubtle metaphors for what he does to his allies and enemies alike. Fucks with their heads, and burns them in the end.

Thok is also a manipulator, but a much more insidious one. Thusly, his "spellbinding vision", which goes underutilized to a detrimental degree. We barely even know what it does other than make you lose your balance, which feels way too situational. My personal interpretation is that it works more like hypnosis, making the victim fall into a suggestive state so long as he's got eye contact. He's no Takadox by any means though, so you can snap out of it fairly easily if you figure out what's happening.

Avak's got both x-ray and telescopic vision, and both would certainly come in handy when making weapons and firing them at longer ranges. But you would really have to stop and think when you're using them, or you'll get disoriented, like running with a pair of binoculars on. They're tools of strategy and survival, not combat.

Reidak is an interesting case. His thermal and infrared vision would be useful in both strategy and keeping track of his marks, but like Thok, these abilities go underutilized. However, this serves more as an interesting look into his head. He is smarter than he lets on, he is fully capable of strategy, but he doesn’t want to because being the 'dumb muscle' is more fun.

I have been resuming my references/redesign for the Piraka, and the first thing I always do before going full on the artwork is testing with expressions if the designs are comfortable for me to draw at a constant pace (in case I do comics or other shenanigans in the future).

Thok was easy, but because I have his more advanced, I did it first. Then I tried Zaktan, thinking he would be difficult... but guess what? Only drawing him facing the front is what needs more studies (tho I love how silly he looks).

It's been a whirlwind on my end this year, from moving house (again in a single year), to finding a new job and various health setbacks. They've all thrown a variety of wrenches into the progress on my projects, making it slow even in my newsletter updates.

Will I catch a break? Hopefully it's looking like it, but all this has brought me to rethink my approach to Hateship's update schedule (my noir monster romance dating sim involving a bunch of biomech criminals). I'm considering making them shorter, more frequent releases - but I'd love your input before I make a full commitment.

If you have ten minutes up your sleeve, please fill out the below survey about visual novel dating sims: 

Complete Survey!

As thanks, you'll get the key character artwork as a desktop background at the end.

(survey closes at the end of next week)

Within, I ask you questions such as:

When do you prefer to play a game during development?

What are your favourite parts in visual novel dating sims?

What do you wish they did better?

And here's the larger Dark Hunter display she's a part of. I don't have too many of them built, but I'm pretty happy with it anyway : ,