Should a protagonist die?
It's a question many authors struggle with. Personally, I think it's an important part of activating the reality wheel in a narrative. It can honestly be annoying when a hero overcomes every outrageous obstacle or battle unscathed, eliminating fear that the character might actually not survive a horrendous encounter. Killing heroes creates an atmosphere of uncertainty. Can they defeat that monster? Is this quest too much for them? Will the dragon eat their face off?!? It's one of the reasons I've stayed away from the traditional 'stop the apocalypse' or 'save the princess' story arc. I find the domino effect style a lot of fun when writing. Events triggered by the protagonists actions give the narrative a much better flow than a story trying to wrap everything up nicely with a bow to accomplish its preconceived end goal. Sometimes there's nothing worse than predicting a story's ending!
This is concept art for Crystal's appearance in Misanthropy. Adam's been doing some great work drawing the characters! He's working on colouring the cover at the moment, though I won't be revealing it until just before the book release.
(!^_^)/~Onechanbara! It was a whole lotta fun!
Most of the games I've been playing lately have been rpg's. Games like the witcher, fallout and darkest dungeon. While these games are great and immersive, they require a lot of hours, especially the way I play. With all the writing I've been doing lately (and stupid day job) I just don't have the time for my favourite rpg's, enter Onechanbara! It was abit of a impulse buy. The cover reminded me of Lollipop chainsaw, which I really enjoyed playing. I realise there's a stereotype surrounding it which is unfortunate. It was a fun zombie slaying sparkle colour comedy dialogue adventure, and Onechanbara was much the same!
The enemy designs were pretty cool and the boss battles enjoyable. It didn't take long to finish, only a few hours, which I liked because I didn't have to grind or search for hidden items or anything. I just turned it on and jumped straight into monster slashing action! The characters were easy to use and the moves rather satisfying, especially the finishing moves where you absolutely rip the monsters apart! The quick time events were very smooth and it was the first time i've used the touch pad for a QTE. Combat was very fluid, graphics were solid, I didn't notice a single glitch which was fantastic! Ultra smooth gameplay. I thought the switching character mechanic to be very useful and fun, weapons were cool and so were the transformations and combos.
Overall, it was a simple, fun game that was a pleasure to play! It get's a Dave score of 8/10 for its enjoyment factor.
Misanthropy has a new artist! http://skavenzverov.deviantart.com/ His artwork is fantastic! This is his drawing of 'Jobee the sea goddess' You might remember her from the first book, she'll be returning for Misanthropy! There are several other illustrations which will be inside the book and I'm pretty excited to see the cover, he's working on it at the moment!
