Design Spotlight - The Shie Hassaikai

Undaunted Raid has just released, and we’re getting wonderful feedback from the community. One of the things I’m hearing the most is how cool and interesting the playstyle and mechanics are for the Shie Hassaikai (Overhaul and his minions) are. So I thought I’d go over that today.

To begin, I’ll explain how we started planning the set. After determining that we wanted to focus on the Overhaul Arc for this expansion, we started talking about the character roster. There were a few shoe-in characters. We knew from the outset that the Clash decks would be featuring Mirio Togata and Overhaul. From there we looked at who to include in the booster set. Kirishima and Fatgum were top of the list, along with the remainder of The Big 3, Sir Nighteye, and Midoriya. Then brought the question of how and who to include from the rest of the Hassaikai. Kendo Rappa was the first selection the design team made due to his iconic fight with Fat Gum and Red Riot. Yu Hojo was our second choice for a full kit because of his primary role in the fight with Suneater.

From there, we knew we would want to include all the other members of Overhaul’s crew, but to varying degrees. While all of that was being determined, work began on initial designs for the 8 fully supported characters. 

With Overhaul, I knew I wanted to get some sort of feel of transmutation in a manner that felt fresh and new. Some of the earliest, simplest ideas were fine and effective, but unexciting. And Overhaul is a character that I knew needed to be exciting and interesting. He really is a true mastermind during this arc, and I wanted to showcase his patience and ability to control things without giving his plans away too soon. Additionally, his quirk is to rewrite matter into whatever he wants. Ultimately, we landed on Overhaul basically doing what he does now with a few variations during development.

Let’s turn our attention to Yu Hojo for a moment. In the Fight between Hojo, Setsuno, Tabe, and Suneater, the 3 criminals repeatedly refer to the fact that the were trash, human garbage, worthless. And that Overhaul took them and gave their lives meaning by putting them to use. This seemed like a fundamental concept for all 8 of the Bullets, but moreso for Hojo as it gives dimension to him other than “big strong brute”. 

With this in mind, we thought a bit on how best to encapture the idea of being trash. After a few sessions working on concepts, we landed on a fun interpretation. A lot of us card players have a fondness for nicknaming everything. And the discard pile is known lovingly by many as the ‘trash bin’. Being able to fish for some better cards, then throwing something away and playing a card from the trash just hit all our marks for thematics.

Kendo Rappa was always intended to be “all gas, no brakes” the character. He wants to FIGHT! He went through many iterations, before landing nicely at his current character card. Being able to turn a successful attack into another try is a pretty good rate for his ability, and he has tools to ensure he can keep pressing the offense button even if it means he will pay for it later.

With these three figured out, we began to turn out attention to the other members of the Shie Hassaikai. I was confident we could create mechanics that would feel satisfying and fun to play, but there was just something missing. A through line that lets you know these dudes roll together.

Historically, the biggest parallel would be the Team designs from the old King Of Fighters sets. For all three of those sets, the majority of characters were grouped into teams of 3 fighters, all of them sharing 2 symbols and a similar mechanic or fighting style. This was something that, as a player, I really enjoyed. It let you know you had a slew of cards designed to aid your character, even if they’re moves from your buddy. Now, this was key to the idea behind that game, and it wouldn’t strictly fit to just copy paste it into Undaunted Raid. The idea still took root in my mind. Some unifying theme to tie all these characters that work together and create an archetype that would be playable to some degree by all of the characters just felt right. 

The first thing that stood out to me in search of this common theme was the ability to play cards from a different zone. This really came to the forefront while designing Overhaul. We really wanted to provide Overhaul some payoffs for playing cards directed at his playstyle.

With a desire to increase Overhaul’s selection of tools to use, and the common theme between Overhaul, Kendo Rappa, and Yu Hojo of playing cards from different zones, it was a clear direction to go in. Some slight adjustments were made to the existing cards that weren’t feeling finished or distinct to make them mesh with the new concepts. In the end, we arrived at a place where most of the Shie Hassaikai either worked in the same manner, or had some impact on the game plan. The two exceptions being Tabe and Mimic. Below are some examples of other cards from remaining Shie Hassaikai members that follow this gameplay and design style.

Deadly Fire and Vital Impact care about any card having been played from a different zone, which could include themselves, but doesn’t need to. Inverted Knife Throw allows you to play it from momentum if you can get it in there face up. Bullet Punches scales on the number of times you’ve played it, including any of its echoes. Trusted Assistant, and Larceny both play into and against this line, but are also viable tools against characters with an Echo gameplan.

Ultimately, we landed in a place where we were really happy with the game design in Undaunted Raid. I really enjoyed the development of the Shie Hassaikai characters and themes, and I look forward to delivering other satisfying gameplay experiences to all of you fans.