The collective heart and soul poured in over the past month by the Dream Builder programming department, animation department, modeling department, and art department finally materialized in this exact moment.
Unlike animations, in-game real-machine graphics were unquestionably the result of everyone pulling together to achieve a final product.
When it came to showcasing a character's charm, real-machine graphics were not as free-flowing as animation, and their expressive power was actually slightly inferior.
Yet for players, the visuals and impact of real-machine gameplay vastly surpassed that of animation.
Because animations were only for watching.
Real-machine gameplay, on the other hand, was something they could genuinely play!
After watching Tong Que's four-second side-profile shooting with bated breath, as the character began to move once more, the players finally clutched their little hearts and began to speak with intense passion:
"Big white rabbit, white and pure, jumping around and looking so cute."
"I feel like I've wasted the last few years playing ACG games."
"Absolute greatness requires no further words!"
"Everyone, no more nonsense, I am definitely getting this character!"
"Get what nonsense, this is an UP pool character, you can't pull for her right now even if you want to!"
"Maybe she'll be up in tomorrow's update! You don't actually think Dream Builder can rework a bunch of characters in just one month, do you?"
When all was said and done, Frost Snow Project had only been in official open beta for four months, and aside from the permanent regular pool, they had only released four character UP pools.
Yet the characters appearing in the preview animation already exceeded twenty.
It was impossible for Dream Builder to remake so many characters in a single month.
--And not just Dream Builder; looking across the entire Xia State, no one could do it.
Thus, it was not hard to guess that that piece of animation must be some sort of "preview animation," showcasing all the characters Dream Builder planned to remake and release over some future period just to dangle carrots in front of the players.
The characters they could actually play very soon were bound to be few.
After all, Dream Builder was still a novice team—though they had been established for a year and a half, their very first game had only been released four months ago and was still teetering on the brink of crashing and burning. In the eyes of mature gaming companies, such a team was still just a greenhorn that had newly stepped into the industry.
Such a novice team usually had all sorts of problems rather than any accumulated technical expertise.
The prior performance of Frost Snow Project had also proven this point.
Therefore, industry peers estimated Dream Builder's productivity to be even lower than the players did.
"Rushing out a few playable characters first, tossing them into the UP pool after an update to rake in a wave of revenue, and then using that revenue to sustain company operations and develop more real-machine characters to form a positive cycle."
This strategy was not hard to guess.
So the players guessing that Tong Que would return to the UP pool was not just wishful thinking.
In reality, Dream Builder had indeed planned it this way.
However, the peers' guesses regarding Dream Builder's production capacity and technical strength were dead wrong.
They would soon realize this.
Because Tong Que in the preview trailer triggered her ultimate skill—
The camera instantly cut to a close-up, the surrounding scenery faded away, and amidst the baptism of flames, Tong Que began her transformation!
Crimson flames washed over her physique, and the vault chain rapidly melted into liquid state, closely clinging and spreading across her skin to transform into a crimson-gold new outfit.
The new attire likewise featured intricate styling, with a large amount of hollow-out designs and gold-inlaid patterns.
The flames flowed all the way along her bodily curves, transforming into dragon tooth pauldrons, a flame skirt, scale armor boots, and golden dragon horns... even the weapon in her hands gained dragon-shaped gold gilding.
Exquisitely unusual.
In this fire-bathed form, bullets fired from her firearms were also imbued with flame effects, and the monsters she struck quickly suffered a "burn" effect.
Yet unlike other ACG games, the damage-buff effect was not given prominence; instead, the camera slowed down, allowing everyone to admire the muzzle-flash shaped like a crimson dragon.
Without a doubt, the animation team was going all out once again.
This time, not even industry peers, but even ordinary onlooker netizens who were just there to munch on melon seeds could feel the animators' off-the-charts overworked efforts right through the screen!
"Holy crap! It's the second form!!"
"Gorgeous!"
"Isn't this a buy-one-get-one-free deal? The value is through the roof!"
"Big Sister is overwhelmingly strong!"
"Is this really Dream Builder? The strength of a new company?"
The players were beyond excited.
Yet things had only just begun.
A wind wall suddenly appeared in front of Tong Que, blocking frontal monster attacks like lasers, catapulted rocks, and slime, while bullets passed over Tong Que's shoulder and through the wind wall to strike the monsters ahead.
The camera swung around as a green curly-haired girl wielding dual pistols opened fire.
The moment she entered the frame, she also triggered her ultimate skill.
The gorgeous ultimate skill animation played out once more.
Unlike Big Sister Tong Que's transformation, He Yin's ultimate skill highlighted the animators' strength from an entirely different angle—
Invisible gales arose from thin air, converging around He Yin as her qipao fluttered endlessly in the howling wind. A pair of straight, slender legs—already slit so high that they were difficult to fully conceal—were now completely exposed to the air.
The wind direction was chaotic, the fluttering direction of the hem was unpredictable, and the exposed body parts shifted with extreme speed. The flawless side contour of her buttocks and the alluring lines at the junction of her thighs and hips flickered in and out of view.
Before the players could exclaim in shock, the brief special effects sequence of the ultimate skill ended.
Yet the visual feast brought by He Yin had only just begun.
The fierce winds brought by the ultimate skill were not merely decorative; this strong gale granted her super-strong mobility, vastly amplifying her running speed and jump height along with a layer of damage reduction.
This allowed He Yin to maneuver at high speeds across the battlefield, running and jumping like flight while firing at full capacity to pour a deluge of bullets upon the monsters.
Amidst such high-speed movement, the hem of her qipao naturally kept dancing about.
In the eyes of the viewers, every single second offered a different scenery, leaving them feeling completely dazzled and unable to take it all in!
Following He Yin, the next to make her entrance was Bai Wei.
This wallflower, whose figure was so overwhelmingly proud that even a plain, unassuming JK uniform took on a different hue, appeared carrying an oversized shotgun.
The camera zoomed in, showing this girl wearing an expression that seemed to say, The gun is too big, the recoil is too strong, I can't take it, and the instant she fired, the massive recoil caused her entire upper body to vibrate violently.
--Not the continuous rifle-style vibration of Tong Que, but a single, ultra-intense jolt.
Yet because this was her ultimate skill, this sole violent vibration was slowed down significantly, allowing viewers to witness the slow-motion jiggling of her proud upper chest beneath her sailor uniform.
This was yet another entirely different kind of visual impact!
Compared to the ultimate skill animations of Tong Que and He Yin, this ultimate skill animation was somewhat simple.
Thus, Tang Ya came up with a reinforcing measure: adding a close-up shot of Bai Wei right after her ultimate skill ended—keeping her posture from the skill's release unchanged, but suddenly returning the time flow to normal, which instantly made the slow-motion jiggling turn violent.
The shift between motion and stillness further intensified the impact of the prior slow motion.
This trick fully demonstrated Ya Ya Did Not Wear Today's master-class erotic expressive power and keen insight into the inner minds of otaku.
This effortless little trick produced an effect that far exceeded Xu Meng's expectations.
Countless otaku subconsciously leaned forward tactically, stretching their necks to capture this fleeting change.
However, the image flashed past in an instant, and the camera had already shifted to Xiao Ningxi.
There had already been too many stimulating visuals beforehand, so the screen time allotted to Xiao Ningxi served to let everyone relax their minds and soothe their overly excited emotions.
Just at that moment, however, an unexpected event occurred—
Orange Juice and numerous other ACG game up-masters were broadcasting live on P Station, so what they were watching naturally happened to be the preview trailer uploaded by Dream Builder to P Station.
Yet as they watched, a red warning suddenly popped up on the screen:
[This video has been blocked for violating community creation guidelines.] Right after that, they were kicked out of the page.
Opening the Frost Snow Project homepage once more, the preview trailer had already vanished.
--The preview trailer for Frost Snow Project had been blocked by P Station.
Begging for monthly passes! Begging for continuous reads!
Before you continue