"Alright, let's get gameplay meeting 1 started," Fu said.
Amai, Fu, and Ken were currently in Fu's room, sitting on the floor getting ready to talk about, of course, the game.
In particular, they were going to discuss how the characters in-game would play.
Amai and Ken were here since they were the gameplay designers, and Fu was here because he had detailed notes on everyone they would be adapting into the game.
The two mini devs had spent a good chunk of time, explaining how the main gameplay mechanics work.
In short. There would be a turn order line at the bottom of the screen, with characters on the line all traveling towards the end of it, and when they reached the end, it would be their turn. The speed at which they traveled along the line of course depended on the current speed of the character.
Leveling up, rather than increasing your stats, would give you skills and skill points. Skills would do various things, from increasing your stats, unlocking new moves, and much more. And skill points would allow you to upgrade those skills as you please, and all the skills would be unique in some way.
The only way to increase your stats would be with skills, equipment, unique abilities, or certain moves.
Then of course there were unique abilities and ultimates. Unique abilities were as implied, unique abilities exclusive to a certain character. And Ultimates were big flashy moves that could be used once they had enough Mana, which was built up during battle.
But that was all just the tip of the ice burg. Ken and Amai(mostly Amai) had put a ton of work into the game's mechanics, and it showed in the gameplay.
"So, let's get the 1A summons out of the way," Fu said, opening up his books.
Summons in the game were essentially extra party members, who showed up in battle but had no impact on the story. You could have one summon character in the party at a time. To make sure the focus was on the actual characters from the game.
"Alright, let's get the easy ones out of the way first," Ken said. "Kirishima. Obviously, he's gonna be a tank. Let's give him a unique ability that reduces damage."
"Good idea but how much? If it's by too much then he could become way too strong." Amai pointed out. "I think at maximum he should reduce damage by 30%. And then we can give him a skill that'll reduce damage by 20% for a few turns. So he'll be able to reduce damage by 50% for a little bit."
"But how are we gonna upgrade it? If we just make it so it reduces more damage he'll be too good." Fu pointed out.
"Then instead of upgrading the damage reduction, we'll upgrade the number of turns the reduction last for," Amai said. "Also we're gonna need to give him a skill that attracts agro."
"One of Kirishima's attacks is called Red Counter, so we should also give him a counter skill," Fu explained. "Any ideas for his ultimate?"
"He just punches you a lot." Ken shrugged. "Not the flashiest thing in the world, but not much else we can do."
"Alright, let's move on for now. Iida." Amai suggested.
"Well obviously we make him super fast," Ken said. "So we just give him a unique ability that makes him super fast."
"Actually, Iida's quirk gets stronger the more he runs," Fu explained. "So why don't we make it so that way he gets faster as the battle goes on. So he's really useful for long battles."
"Oh, I like that! It adds to the strategy part of the game!" Amai said. "What about his skills though? All Iida seems to do is run fast and kick people."
"Well one of his special moves can be a kick that increases his speed," Fu added. "And another…I guess he can run around the enemy and give them confusion?"
"I guess." Ken shrugged. "This is not as easy as I thought. Let's get back to him some other time, maybe he'll come up with a new move. Let's do Todoroki next."
"Well obviously his special moves are gonna revolve around fire and ice and giving the burn and freeze status," Fu said. "To be specific, Todoroki should specialize in area of effect attacks. He's at his best when he's facing large groups of weaker enemies, rather than one really strong enemy."
"So he'll have fire and ice a.o.e. attacks, that inflict status aliments, and his ultimate is gonna be some combination of both." Amai summarized. "But what about his unique ability?"
"Well…" Fu took a moment to contemplate. "How about we make him immune to the freeze and burn statuses?"
"That feels a kinda lame," Ken observed, raising an eyebrow at Fu's suggestion. "Feels more like a regular skill."
"Well if his other abilities are really good, then him having an only ok unique ability should be fine," Amai told him. "Let's move on. Uraraka. I think her unique skill should be that whenever she attacks a grounded enemy, they gain the status float They become incapable of using physical attacks, and will be treated as flying enemies. And if she hits flying enemies, they become grounded, become immobile, and can't use physical attacks. And will be treated as grounded enemies."
"Oh, it references her gravity quirk. That's nice." Fu nodded. "I'll add, one of her special attacks should be her raining a bunch of boulders on the enemy."
"Definitely." Ken nodded. "And her ultimate should be her jumping really high into the air and smashing into the opponent like a meteor."
"Alright good. Actually, I have some good ideas from Hagakure." Fu said, moving to the next student.
"Hagakure? You mean invisible girl?" Ken asked, giving him a skeptical look.
"Yeah. Invisible girl. I was thinking for her, she has really bad stats but her unique ability gives her lots of evasion, and one of her skills inflicts blindness on the enemies." Fu explained. "So she's kind of a luck-based character, where she's unlikely to get hit, and she can make it super hard for the opponents to hit your team, but if she gets hit it's gonna hurt a lot. And she can't do much damage."
"Oh, I get it. I can already see people online saying she's either useless or O.P. online." Amai said. "Let's do another simple one. Aoyama. He uses laser attacks, he has A.O.E. where he shoots lasers in all directions. And his ultimate is a big laser."
"What about his unique ability?" Ken asked.
"How about he deals extra damage against dark enemies?" Fu suggested. "Since he's always going on about being glamorous and sparkly."
"That works." Amai agreed. "Although I doubt Lady Kiba is going to like seeing her in-game self get destroyed by Aoyama of all people."
"She'll live." Fu deadpanned. "Moving on. Let's keep going with the easy ones. Asui. She has lots, of different abilities. First, let's make her unique ability water-based. Like she gets a stat buff, if she's in a water-filled environment, fighting a water-based enemy, or have a water-based ally. For one of her special moves, she could use camouflage to raise her evasion-"
"She can camouflage!?" Ken shouted out in shock. "Since when?"
"Since recently," Fu answered. "She's not super good at it yet. But she will be, so it's ok to put it in the game. Anyway, back to what I was saying. She could also use her mucus to cause paralysis. And she could use her tongue to drag down flying enemies. And of course, her ultimate is a really big kick."
"Well, it is her favorite move," Ken grumbled, recalling all the kicks to the head he'd endured while fighting her.
"Alright, so what are we gonna do about Ojiro?" Amai asked.
"I mean the guy is surprisingly strong. But he's still just a guy with a strong tail and martial arts." Ken sighed, trying to think of anything. "Not really much potential for unique abilities. You got anything Fu?"
"Well, I knew Ojiro was gonna be difficult so I did some thinking," Fu said. "Maybe he'll get stat boots against humanoid enemies. Because martial arts are most effective against humanoid bodies."
"Ehhhhh." Ken honestly wasn't too hot on this. "I mean…there aren't gonna be too many human-like enemies in the game, and that feels kinda weak…but I guess that's the best we've got. Anything else."
"Not really," Fu admitted. "Maybe we can ask Ojiro to show us some martial arts moves and just turn those into skills."
"That's probably for the best," Amai said. "Moving on, Sato. He's big, he's strong. He likes to bake. What do we get?"
"Well, I was thinking he could be an offensive healer. He hits hard, and he heals with food." Fu explained. "What do you think?"
"An offensive healer. I like it." Amai agreed. "So one of his special moves is a big hit. We can make a few more of them different kinds of food. What about his unique skill and ultimate?"
"Well, Sato gets stronger the more sugar he eats right? So for his unique skill, we can make it so that every time he heals himself, he gets a strength buff. And for his ultimate, he can eat a bunch of food, max heal himself, and then do a really strong attack. But afterward, he loses all of his strength buffs, because Sato gets tired if he overuses his quirk."
"Alright, that makes sense." Ken nodded. "What about Tokoyami? We gotta do something cool for him."
"Well the whole thing with him is that Dark Shadow gets stronger in the darkness or when Tokoyami gets mad. So, what if we gave him a big stat boost if he fights in dark places." Fu explained. "And for his special moves, he could have a counter move, because if he gets hit, he gets mad, and then Dark Shadow retaliates. And his ultimate move could unleash Dark Shadow's full power for a few turns but puts the berserk status on him, so he won't listen to you."
"Oh, that sounds perfect!" Ken said, commending him. "Oh! I just had a great idea for Jiro! Let's make her unique skill ignore 60% of the enemy's defense when she attacks. Because as someone who has a transformation with a sonic attack, I can say, it doesn't matter how defensive you are, those things will hurt."
"Yeah, but isn't that a bit too strong?" Fu asked.
"Well if we give her a low attack stat then that should balance it out. And it'll make her a lot better against bosses with lots of defense." Amai explained. "And we can give her some A.O.E. attacks and attacks that inflict the stunned status. And her ultimate will be a huge sound wave that ignores defense and inflict stunned status on all enemies."
"Sounds good to me." Ken nodded. "Oh! And we should give Mina something similar. Since she has acid, defense shouldn't matter that much."
"But we can't give her the same unique skill as Jiro, that wouldn't make it unique." Amai pointed out with a frown. "Maybe we can give her a unique skill that causes all her attacks to lower the enemy's defense? Because she's using her acid to make holes in the enemy's defense? And maybe one of her attacks can ignore defense, and one of them can negate an attack."
"That sounds good," Fu said. "Oh, and I figured out something for Kaminari. He has this human taser move, so let's give him a unique ability that makes it so if anyone hits him with a physical attack, they take a certain amount of damage."
"Well I mean your punching a guy covered in lightning so that works," Ken said. "And let's make Kaminari have super powerful attacks, but he takes recoil damage after each attack. And he has a lot of A.O.E. attacks, and attacks that inflict stun. So he's really good for short fights! And his Ultimate Attack is one massive attack that instantly takes him out of the battle."
"Neat." Fu nodded. "So Sero then. I can think of a few skills for him. An attack that drags flying enemies down. An attack that immobilizes enemies. But what about his Unique Ability?"
"How about he can attack an enemy even if they're flying and out of range?" Amai suggested.
"That works. That just leaves Shoji now." Fu explained. "Honestly, I have no idea what we're gonna do with him. I mean his quirk is mostly a search and rescue quirk. He has some super strength but not much, and we already have a ton of strong bruiser characters. So what do we do?"
There was a long pause, as each one of them took a few minutes to try and think about this conundrum.
Then suddenly, Amai's eyes lit up and you could almost see the metaphorical light bulb above her head. "Oh! Search! His unique ability can give you extra gold after a battle! Because he "searched" for it."
"Ehhhhh. Fine." Ken shrugged. He wasn't sure he liked that, but he literally had no other ideas.
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
Everyone looked at Amai, whose stomach was the source of the growling.
"Well, I guess it's time to call the meeting to an end," Amai said calmly, ignoring the sound that just came out of her stomach.
"How do you eat so much and not gain weight?" Ken asked.
"Lots, and lots of exercises," Amai explained, as she got up to go eat. "Now, if you excuse me."
VROMMM!
Amai ran out of the room at stunning speeds, charging towards the kitchen.
"She and Yami are good for each other. If only because they appreciate food so much." Fu said.
"He better learn how to cook for ten. Because each of them is gonna eat a five-course meal three times a day." Ken half-joked.
"I can't imagine what'll happen if they have kids," Fu added. "Gonna need a freezer the size of a building. Then again, should we really be talking considering we can both eat more than them?"
"Hey, I can only eat that much as Wildmutt." Ken defended before his stomach also growled. "Ugh, all this talk about food ME hungry now."
"Well, me and Kyosei are always willing to eat." Fu sighed, closing his notebook. "Let's go."