The following is a list of Behind the Scenes stuff, as well a miscellaneous details about the game which you might have overlooked. Not that it really needs to be said here, but SPOILER WARNING!
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In case the ending didn’t make things clear, you don’t play as the hunter in the game — you play as the sorcerer, watching the hunter through the golden eye devices (what they see is displayed on the mirror) and controlling his actions. You can do (or, in the final scene, say) positive or negative things to him, and the ending is determined by how good or bad you are to him (I explain how to get each one at the bottom of this entry).

The game’s wait cursor shows one of the “eyecams” (as I called them) repeatedly dilating and constricting. This is supposed to represent the sorcerer’s control over the hunter starting to waver. Notice how this cursor doesn’t appear in the final scene, since the sorcerer is viewing through the hunter through his own eyes in that situation.

The game’s title came late in the planning stages. I wanted a name that was short, distinct, and inspired curiosity. The word “kynigos” is Greek and means “hunter”. The sorcerer’s name (which I think I decided on after deciding on the title) is Greek as well (meaning “liberator”), and the name of his beast has a Greek root as well (“arkhos”, meaning “ruler”). I was also pretty pleased with the symmetry I was able to create with the text on the title screen (as well as a green glow that provides a bit of foreshadowing).

The two characters standing to the far right in the second image that appears in the intro are supposed to be Idony and Selda, the two main characters from my short story “Curseday”. Unfortunately, due to their small size, it’s practically impossible to tell it’s them:

The sorcerer’s beast is a real extinct mammal called an Andrewsarchus. It is known only from one skull 32.8 inches (83.4 cm) in length, and is thought to be the largest predatory land mammal that ever lived. Ironically, it belongs to the order Artiodactyla (even-toed ungulates), which includes deer, pigs, cows…and sheep.

I came up with the idea for this game in 2017, though there was a lot of character development that never made it into the game itself. Nearly all of this is development for the sorcerer. His backstory isn’t completely fleshed out, but I decided that he wished to practice magic from a young age, but after a terrible accident that permanently burned off a large patch of his hair, and he started looking into more obscure forms of magic, even developing techniques of his own. One of his most impressive skills is resurrecting prehistoric life forms using their fossilized remains, and one of his most closely guarded secrets is that he has a soft spot for some of the smaller creatures he brings to life and can’t resist cuddling them (especially eohippi).
https://akril15.deviantart.com/art/A-Light-Secret-662050252

The sorcerer’s lair was designed to look like a typical evil sorcerer’s lair while also being a fantastic fusion of technology (his “magic mirror” looks and functions very much like a computer with a touch screen) and nature (the green lights on the walls are bio-luminescent fungi).

The structure under the left tower (which you can see when the hunter is within sight of the sorcerer’s mountain) functions as a greenhouse containing various prehistoric plants which the herbivorous creatures the sorcerer brings to life feed upon (as well as some fruits and vegetables for his own consumption). Here’s a picture showing it from the inside:
https://akril15.deviantart.com/art/Don-t-be-afraid-673791040

I tried to find an “authentic” design for the magic circle on the floor that was associated with necromancy, but unfortunately, virtually all the designs I could find were from Fullmetal Alchemist. The symbols around the circle’s outer edge are the symbols of the most abundant elements found in the human body (and other organisms as well, I’d assume), and the three symbols inside the circle represent the proton, the neutron and the electron.

The skull on the sorcerer’s shelf is a neanderthal skull. One of the reasons the sorcerer was able to control the hunter is because the sorcerer is skilled at manipulating the actions of the extinct animals he resurrects (the beast didn’t do what it did out of its own free will), and the hunter’s genetic makeup contains an abnormally high amount of neanderthal DNA (as you might have noticed from his face).

I originally planned on going with LucasArts-style speech for this game (where the speech appears above a character’s head while his/her sprite plays a talking animation), but since the sorcerer’s face isn’t visible during the final scene, Sierra-style speech portraits were a much better option for showing the characters’ emotions. Plus, it meant a lot less work when it came to the hunter, since going with the LucasArts-style speech would have meant doing up to 8 speech animations for him (since I had to do animations of him both with the sword and without).

The cutscene between the third room and the sorcerer’s lair was originally going to be another sequence like the previous woodblock print-esque cutscenes, but I realized that actually giving the player a good look at the beast (since you don’t get the best look at it in the final scene) as well as a glimpse of the sorcerer’s face was a much better transition (it also meant I didn’t have to animate the hunter opening the door — I just had to play the sound. ;) ).

The sound of the hunter’s heart being ripped out and replaced is a modified sound of a melon being ripped apart. The sound of his heart being squeezed is a lemon being squeezed.

You might notice that the hunter’s heart starts out beating very rapidly, but as you continue to talk with him, it eventually slows to a much less frantic pace.

AGS doesn’t seem to handle TrueType fonts very well, which is why the tails of letters keep getting cut off and there is a large upper margin in the text windows (which, as you may have guessed, are actually the sorcerer’s thoughts, not the hunter’s).

The music in this game was created using a music generator, with some modifications made in LMMS. It might not be the best music, but it is original.

The three possible endings to the game are:
Bad: Do as many bad things to the hunter as possible. You have the option to kill him by clicking on him (there will be a minor “addition” to the credits screen). The credits text is red.
Neutral: Do a combination of good and bad things to the hunter. You have the option of letting him take the sword by clicking on it before he leaves. The credits text is gray.
Good: Do as many good things to the hunter as possible. If you tell him your name, he will call you by it as he leaves. The credits text is white.

The various actions which effect the ending are:
Bad: Tripping over the root, eating the mushrooms, touching the thorn bush, eating the berries, getting too close to the cliff near the sorcerer’s mountain, picking the third dialog option for each of the hunter’s questions (i.e., refuse to tell him anything)
Good: Smelling the flowers, sitting on the rock, drinking the water, telling the hunter your name, choose the “He is a creature I created” option when asked about the beast