A Word From the Director #3 - The Road to Power

Deck-Building Mode

In deck-building mode you craft up to three custom decks of skills and preview them before battle. This is where you fine-tune your character and steer part of their growth.

Five Categories

All skills fall into five distinct families—Drums, Chords, Melody, Voices and Bass. Each maps to a section of an orchestra on the musical side and to its own sub-system on the gameplay side.
The split lets us segment both effects (RPG layer) and samples (music layer). You’re not just optimising gameplay; you’re unknowingly composing a new track every match.
The secret: every single sample can be mixed with every other without ever sounding off-key—a tough musical constraint that guarantees your strategy will always produce a great-sounding tune.

🥁 Drums (Green) — Passive, cost = Flow

Percussion loops that run automatically bar after bar.
Possible effects: Heal · Buff/Debuff/Clean (Hype, Regen Hype, Drain Hype)

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🎹 Chords (Blue) — Passive, cost = Hype

Harmonic backing that also loops automatically.
Effects: Flow Refill · Buff/Debuff/Clean (Flow, Regen Flow, Drain Flow)

Synergy: Drums keep you alive; Chords keep your mana flowing. Lose Hype and you’re KO; lose Flow and you can’t cast.

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🎸 Bass (Purple) — Active, cost = Flow/Hype/Mixed

Plays only if equipped; once triggered it stays active until the end of the current 4-bar block.
Effects: Buff/Debuff (Armour, Resistance) · Shield · Clean (Armour, Resistance)

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🎵 Melody (Yellow) — Active, main damage source

Cost = Hype, Flow or Mixed.
Effects: Direct Damage · Drain Hype/Flow · Buff/Debuff/Clean (% Crit, Crit Damage, Damage) · Heal
The only family that deals direct damage—pillar of offensive play.

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🎤 Voices (Red) — Active, uber-flexible

Acts on any stat; cost = Hype, Flow or Mixed.
Effects: Buffs/Debuffs/Cleans (all stats) · Universal Clean (remove X stacks of every debuff)

Category recap
• Drums – passive percussion, Flow-paid → sustain / Hype management
• Chords – passive harmony, Hype-paid → Flow economy
• Bass – active defence, buffs & shields
• Melody – active offence, only direct-damage family
• Voices – active support, touches every stat

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Building a Killer Deck

Rules

• A skill can only sit in its own category slot.
• Each character starts with 10 slots (2 per category).
• Star-level grants:
  • Slot Points – unlock up to +2 extra slots in one category.
  • Rank Points – raise a slot’s minimum rarity.

Players begin with simple effects and gradually unlock deeper options as the character advances.

Culture & Class – Your Gameplay DNA

A character is defined by two layers: Culture (origin) and Class (role).

• Culture grants a global stat preset.
  Example: PenPen characters are hardy: +20 % Hype.
• Class gives a second preset, a dominant category (-20 % cost in that family) and a unique passive.

Jasparu example

• Culture: PenPen → +20 % Hype
• Class: Monk → another Hype boost
• Dominant category: Bass (Bass skills cost -20 %)
• Class passive: All Monk shields reflect a % of incoming damage based on Armour.

That means Jasparu can win via pure defence—reflecting damage—without ever equipping a Melody card. Class steers your style but never locks you in.

Identity recap
• Culture = broad stat bonus
• Class = dominant category + stat tweak + unique passive

Signature Attacks & Maestria

Every character owns two special moves:

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Both deal instant direct damage (sometimes extra effects) to keep battles short and explosive.

Musical Combo system

• One set of combos fills the Maestria gauge.
• Another set defines a power multiplier that boosts your Super/Ultimate when you fire it.
  Execute clean musical patterns → charge up → unleash a crowd-pleasing finisher.

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