All about Holodeck - A Hololive Fangame Project

Welcome to the Holodeck Project Page! This game project is one that I (Matthew Watson) and my project partner (@fittyyyen) have been working on for several months. We are approaching the release of a proof-of-concept Alpha, and preceding that I wanted to write out some design notes highlighting Holodeck's unique gameplay systems and the design inspiration behind the characters that will be in this first release.

Program Cards - The core system behind Holodeck

Program cards make up the contents of a player's deck in Holodeck. These cards on the surface seem exceedingly plain, containing very simple titles such as Attack, Defend, or Disrupt. These program cards are actually all cards which provide the player with a new selection of cards, all following the theme presented by the Program Card's title. The selection provided dynamically reflects the player's party of characters. After the player selects one of these cards, it is added to the player's hand to be used and the original program card is discarded. 

For example, let's say the player has the Defender Iroha, the Striker Towa, and the Supporter Mio in their party. After playing the "Attack" Program card, the player will be presented with a selection between Iroha's Iaijutsu card, Towa's DoubleTap card and Mio's HatotarusStrike card.

Thanks to this system, a player will always have the ability to make use of any of their character's talents no matter how unlucky they might be with their draws. This makes combo abilities much more accessible, and allows for many choices on any given turn.

Tokoyami Towa - Striker

Tokoyami Towa from Hololive Japan's 4th generation, is the Holodeck Alpha build's Striker, or offensive DPS specialist character. 

Towa is a Devil who in lore came from the demon realm to observe humanity. Despite having this task, Towa instead got addicted to games and decided to stay in the human realm as a streamer. Even though she is a Devil, Towa can't help but be caring and friendly, leading to a longtime running joke for fans that declares that Towa is TMT, or Towa Maji Tenshi (Towa is an Angel). Despite her friendly nature, Towa still tries to prank others or act mean, though she can never keep it up for long. Also at odds with her TMT reputation is her skill as an FPS game player. Towa is a frequent competitor in Japanese Apex Legends E-sports tournaments, playing alongside and against professional E-sports players where she is able to more than hold her own. Her in game model in Holodeck wields a shotgun as a reference to her weapon of choice in many an Apex Legends match.

Towa's unique gameplay mechanic is her personal status called "Devilry". Several of Towa's cards are "devious pranks" as opposed to more traditional attacks. While these cards are somewhat ineffectual compared to disruption specialists, they build up Towa's Devilry which she can spend on powerful support abilities that boost both Towa and her allies. Functions a bit oddly for a stat called "Devilry" but then again, Towa was never very good a being a devil anyway.

Kazama Iroha - Defender

Kazama Iroha from Hololive Japan's Secret Society HoloX, is the Holodeck Alpha build's Defender, or defensive tank specialist character.

Iroha is a samurai, and the designated bodyguard of the mysterious group known as HoloX, a secret society dedicated to taking over the world. While HoloX is not particularly good at doing any world controlling, Iroha is in fact pretty good at physical tasks. She's famous for playing the workout game Ring-fit adventure at the highest intensity level, singing and talking calmly while doing an impressive number of exercise reps. At odds with a wise samurai persona, Iroha is something of a country girl, generally unfamiliar with her new life in Japan's big cities, and prone to getting lost or not understanding how to ride the subway. 

Iroha's unique mechanics include Intensity, a stat that builds as Iroha plays cards. Intensity allows Iroha to retaliate automatically, dealing damage before she takes it from enemies. She can also spend her intensity on unique card effects, allowing her to step out of her defensive role as long as she's had time to build up strength. Less positive is her propensity for getting lost. Some of her powerful cards come with the downside where "lost in the city" cards are added to the player's deck. These cards are functionally dead draws, and can only be removed by spending energy on playing them.

Ookami Mio - Support

Ookami Mio from Hololive GAMERS is the Holodeck Alpha build's Supporter, or support buffing specialist character.

Mio is a wolf with a motherly aura about her, and an interest in the mystic arts of fortune telling. She initially debuted as a character intended to be somewhat standoffish, but Mio could not keep it up for long and has long since become a streamer you watch when you want to have a healing experience. Whether it is her calm and thoughtful commentary, or her propensity for bursting into laughter at her friend's antics, Mio buoys everyone's spirits with her presence alone. Even her fortune telling can do this, as she primarily uses her Tarot readings as a medium to give thoughtful and positive life advice to her friends in Hololive. 

Mio's unique mechanic is where many of her cards shuffle fortune cards into the discard pile. Unlike when Iroha gets lost, these cards are desirable to draw, as they replace themselves being played automatically when drawn, boosting the stats of her allies and of Mio herself. And a boosted Mio is even better at boosting her friends. Like all supporters Mio boosts the offensive and defensive abilities of her party, but she's also a specialist in card draw, giving the player more options then they would with another supporter.

The Stat System - Expertise/Adaptability/Insight

Thanks to the program card system, the player has easy access to many cards at once, even if they only had a few unique program cards in their hand. (Three unique cards in hand results in 9 unique cards to choose from!) Because of this, Holodeck's full version will feature a relatively conservative number of cards per character, intended to number at around 15ish. Without filler cards, Holodeck's scaling comes instead from a stat system which grows during the course of an individual encounter and an entire campaign. 

The stat system has three stats for the player heroes. Expertise is a character's main stat, used when they fulfill their primary role. For example, Towa, as the offensive Striker, uses Expertise when she plays damage dealing cards, while Iroha, the defensive tank, uses Expertise when she plays damage mitigation block cards. Adaptability in contrast, is the stat used whenever a character is playing a card that steps outside of their role. Insight is a more unique stat, which affects things like the rate at which characters build up their unique mechanics. For example, Iroha will build her stacks of Intensity quicker, increasing the gain per card play by 1 for each point of Insight she has.

Supporter characters specialize in boosting these three stats for their party members throughout a battle, though these stats will return to their character defined default values after the battle ends. More permanent is the influence of items, gained throughout the course of an individual run via rewards or from being purchased from shops. These will give persistent stat boosts and provide other unique effects.

These are the main systems and basic explanations of them that reflect the game as it is of this writing. So far, there are 6 unique program cards implemented for the three characters listed here, all of which are functional in game (making for 18 cards total). 

Still on the docket for the first release are these elements:

• A few more enemies are going to be implemented beyond the ones currently in game, and they will have unique models and animations. (Some implemented enemies, such as the ones in the screenshots currently on this page, use default models included in the deckbuilder toolkit)
• New models, animations, environments, and shaders that will push the game's visuals away from Unreal's photorealism and into a more stylized look and feel.
• Shops, including items and other rewards are to be implemented
• A small selection of events need to be written
• A boss encounter will be designed

Finally, for those in the know about the Hololive talents, the next three characters to be implemented post this pre-alpha launch are going to be Ceres Fauna from Hololive English's Council Generation as a supporter, Omaru Polka from Hololive Japan's 5th Generation as a Striker, and Himemori Luna from Hololive Japan's 4th Generation as a Defender!