Zaboru was now back inside his personal office, and it was already getting close to night. The city lights outside the massive glass windows slowly illuminated Seoul with a soft glow, while the atmosphere inside the office finally beca peaceful after the exhausting eting earlier. Most of today's work had already been completed, and whatever remained could easily be handled tomorrow.
Right now, however, Zaboru was smiling for a completely different reason.
A new ga had just been released on Steam called "White Hunter," and surprisingly, the ga was already receiving solid reviews from players. That alone imdiately caught his attention.
Zaboru chuckled softly while opening Steam on his computer. "Well, I honestly didn't expect there to already be other Korean ga developers rising this quickly aside from us," he muttered to himself. "And this Kang Soft company only started last year too... it's pretty impressive that they already managed to release a ga now."
There was genuine excitent in his expression. As much as he loved ZAGE, one of the things Zaboru wanted most was for the ga industry itself to grow stronger. Seeing new studios appear, especially in Korea, made him feel oddly satisfied.
Without wasting more ti, Zaboru quickly logged into his Steam account and purchased White Hunter. The ga itself only cost around twenty-five dollars, which honestly felt fairly cheap for a fully 3D action ga.
Then he clicked download with visible excitent like an ordinary gar waiting to try a newly released title.
While waiting for the download to finish, Zaboru walked to the small fridge near his office desk and took out the donuts he had left there since morning. He also brought a cup of coffee with him, then returned to his chair with a wide grin. "Nothing better than snacks before gaming, hahaha!"
Not long after that, the download finally finished. Zaboru imdiately started the ga, and the Kang Soft logo appeared on the screen. It was simple but stylish, a sharp letter K displayed with a clean white and black color palette. Then the screen faded to darkness, the sound beca quiet, and the opening cinematic began.
At first, there was only silence. Then a planet slowly appeared from the darkness of space, glowing with a pale and unnatural white light. It was beautiful at first glance, but the longer the cara lingered on it, the more disturbing it beca. The surface had no ocean blue, no green land, no warm city lights, only endless white stretching across the entire planet like sothing had erased every color from existence.
A deep narrator's voice slowly echoed through the darkness. "White Planet... SSD-174. Once, it was only a distant world recorded by explorers at the edge of known space. Now, it is rembered as the birthplace of the creatures known as the Whites."
The scene shifted, showing white creatures crawling across ruined alien cities. So were small, moving like insects in massive swarms. So were gigantic, towering over buildings like living disasters. Others had shapes almost similar to humans, but their bodies had no skin texture, no eyes, no blood, no clear features at all. They were completely white, like unfinished statues given life. Because of that, they looked almost censored, but the horror ca from realizing that it was not censorship at all. That was simply what they were.
The narrator continued as the trailer showed planets being invaded one after another. "They co in many forms. Small. Large. Beastlike. Machinelike. Humanoid. But every White shares the sa curse. A body without color, a hunger without reason, and an instinct to consu every living world they touch."
Then the screen showed a battlefield covered in pale mist. Soldiers fired laser weapons into the distance, but the white creatures kept coming. A massive monster opened its mouth, and instead of blood or fire, a strange glowing substance poured from its body, spreading across the ground like liquid light.
"The Whites are a nace to the universe," the narrator said, his voice growing heavier. "They invade planets, destroy civilizations, and leave behind only White Essence, a strange substance that devours color, mory, and life itself."
The music slowly grew louder. The trailer showed a burning planet, refugees running toward ships, and a lone warrior standing in the middle of a ruined city while holding a glowing weapon. His armor was damaged, but he did not move back even as countless white silhouettes surrounded him.
"And this..." the narrator continued, "is the story of Dorim, the space warrior who refused to run. The guardian of his ho planet. The last shield against the Whites."
The cara moved closer to Dorim's helt as white monsters rushed toward him from every direction. His weapon ignited with a sharp flash of light, and for one dramatic mont, the entire screen turned black and white before the title appeared.
WHITE HUNTER.
Then finally the nu screen appeared. A man wearing futuristic sci-fi armor stood in the middle of the screen while holding a glowing laser sword, fighting against countless White creatures rushing toward him from every direction. The background music imdiately beca intense, filled with heavy drums and electronic sounds that perfectly matched the desperate atmosphere of the ga.
The entire nu itself looked surprisingly stylish. Every UI elent used sharp white and black colors with glowing blue effects, giving the ga a clean futuristic aesthetic without looking too expensive or overly complicated.
Zaboru looked genuinely amused.
"Heh... they're actually pretty smart," he muttered while watching the nu animation carefully. "Because the Whites only use pure white textures like that, it massively decreases the performance requirent issue while still perfectly fitting the lore itself."
The more he analyzed it, the more impressed he beca.
Most beginner developers would try making monsters with extrely detailed textures and complicated effects to impress players visually, but Kang Soft instead chose a clever artistic shortcut that actually strengthened the ga's identity. The White creatures looked unsettling exactly because they lacked details.
That decision alone probably saved massive developnt ti, reduced hardware strain, improved optimization, and allowed larger enemy counts on screen.
Zaboru grinned.
"Genius."
Then Zaboru quickly started playing. At first, he expected White Hunter to be more narrative-focused because of how dramatic the opening cinematic had been, but the ga imdiately surprised him. After choosing Dorim as the main character, the ga asked the player to select a starter weapon. There were two available choices: Sword and Spear. The sword seed faster and easier to control, while the spear had longer range, stronger thrust attacks, and better crowd control. Zaboru imdiately chose the spear because he liked weapons that rewarded spacing, timing, and positioning.
After that, another nu appeared. This ti, it showed the stage selection screen, and Zaboru's eyes imdiately sharpened with interest. The ga did not force the player into a fixed linear path. Instead, it allowed the player to choose which stage to challenge first. Right now, there were four available bosses: The White Bulldozer, White Cerberus, White Assassin, and White Shark. Each boss had its own stage, visual identity, and environntal gimmick, making the structure feel similar to classic boss-selection gas but translated into a 3D hack-and-slash format.
The first boss, The White Bulldozer, was placed in a ruined city district. From the preview image, the creature looked like a massive living tank with a drill fused into the front of its body. Its entire form was covered in pure white, but its silhouette was strong enough to make it instantly morable. The stage seed filled with broken roads, collapsed buildings, abandoned vehicles, and narrow streets where the creature could charge forward like an unstoppable machine. Zaboru could already imagine the gimmick clearly. This boss was probably about dodging brutal straight-line attacks, avoiding crushed debris, and using the city layout to stop or redirect its movent.
The second boss, White Cerberus, appeared in a wide open field under a pale sky. Unlike the Bulldozer, this creature looked more animalistic. It had three heads, a long muscular body, and legs shaped for speed rather than weight. Its white body made it look like a ghostly beast carved from bone and light. The open field suggested that the boss fight would focus on movent, positioning, and reading attack patterns from multiple directions. One head might bite, another might spit White Essence, while the last might roar to summon smaller Whites. Zaboru smiled slightly because this kind of boss could beco extrely fun if the AI was aggressive enough.
The third boss, White Assassin, looked completely different from the others. Its stage preview showed a closed environnt, almost like an abandoned research facility or underground base. The corridors were narrow, the lighting was dim, and the walls were covered in strange white stains. The boss itself had a humanoid shape, thin limbs, blade-like arms, and a smooth faceless head. Compared to the other monsters, it looked smaller, but that made it more dangerous. Zaboru imdiately guessed that this boss would probably rely on speed, ambushes, stealth attacks, and sudden disappearances. In a cramped environnt, a fast enemy with blade arms could beco far scarier than a giant monster.
The fourth boss, White Shark, was located in the sea. The preview image showed a dark ocean facility surrounded by violent waves, with a gigantic white shark-like creature swimming beneath the surface. Its body was sleek, enormous, and unnatural, as if a predator from the deep sea had been infected by White Essence. The stage looked like it would mix platform movent, unstable footing, and attacks from below. Zaboru could imagine the boss suddenly breaking through the water, destroying parts of the platform, forcing the player to keep moving while fighting smaller Whites crawling from the sea.
Looking at all four stages, Zaboru's smile widened. None of the bosses looked random. Each one had a clear the, a strong silhouette, and a different gaplay idea behind it. The White Bulldozer was brute force. White Cerberus was speed and pressure. White Assassin was fear and precision. White Shark was environntal danger. For a new Korean studio that had only started last year, this level of planning was genuinely impressive.
"Hooo gaman like style? , but they actually have different gimmicks interesting.." Zaboru then choose "The White Bulldozer" first and then the creature is resemble a Tank with Drill in front of it only as it only Whites Outlines.
Then Zaboru finally started playing, and honestly, the ga was surprisingly good. White Hunter was a full 3D hack-and-slash ga where players fought against White creatures while collecting currency, equipnt materials, and weapon upgrades throughout each stage. Enemies dropped fragnts of White Essence that could be exchanged for new armor parts, weapon modifications, and skill upgrades, giving the gaplay a satisfying progression loop.
What impressed Zaboru the most was how smooth the combat felt. Dorim's movents were responsive, attacks had proper impact, and the spear weapon itself felt surprisingly satisfying to use. Long-range thrust attacks could pierce multiple enemies, spinning attacks were useful for crowd control, and the dodge chanics rewarded proper timing instead of random button mashing.
The White creatures also ca in many forms during gaplay. So rushed aggressively in groups, so exploded after death, and others attacked from walls or ceilings. Combined with the ga's clean visual design, it made combat easy to read despite the large number of enemies appearing on screen.
As for the story itself, it was relatively simple on the surface. Dorim was trying his best to protect his ho planet from the invading Whites, traveling from one battlefield to another while humanity slowly lost ground. However, the deeper Zaboru played, the more he realized there was an interesting twist hidden underneath the straightforward premise.
Around the middle of the ga, Dorim discovered that the Whites were weak against mysterious artifacts known as "The Black." Unlike normal weapons, these artifacts were created from materials left behind by an extinct race called The Blacks, a civilization that had supposedly vanished long before the current era.
The mont Dorim obtained a weapon forged from The Black material, the gaplay itself noticeably changed. The Black weapons dealt massive damage to White creatures, could pierce their defenses more easily, and even temporarily disrupted White Essence regeneration.
But there was a cost.
Every ti Dorim used those weapons, small black spots slowly began spreading across parts of his body.
At first, it only appeared around his hands. Then his arms. Later, so scenes even showed dark veins slowly crawling beneath his armor. Despite that, Dorim continued using the weapons anyway because they were humanity's only real chance of fighting back against the Whites.
Zaboru imdiately understood what Kang Soft was trying to do narratively. The Whites represented complete loss of color and identity, while The Black represented sothing equally dangerous in the opposite direction. Instead of making a simple good-versus-evil story, the ga seed to hint that both powers were unnatural forces capable of corrupting living beings.
There were also other races besides humans shown throughout the story, including alien refugees, chanical civilizations, and strange humanoid species living on distant planets. However, the ga had not explored them deeply yet. Most of them only appeared briefly through cutscenes, side dialogues, or environntal storytelling.
Still, Zaboru could already see the potential.
If Kang Soft expanded the universe properly in future titles, White Hunter could easily beco a strong sci-fi action franchise.
Zaboru grinned while continuing to play. "Because of the Whites' design, the ga feels incredibly smooth," he muttered approvingly. The simplified texture design was clearly helping the ga maintain stable performance even during large battles with dozens of enemies.
The optimization alone was genuinely impressive for a studio this new.
By the ti Zaboru realized it, he had already been playing for hours.
And honestly?
White Hunter was a really good ga.
To be continue
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