A light punch connected, followed by a command input, and Terry executed a shoulder tackle—Power Charge.
Immediately after, an incredibly swift Crack Shoot brutally kicked the airborne Geese to the edge of the screen.
This combo, long ingrained in his soul from his past life, was fluid and efficient.
On the screen, Geese's health bar instantly disappeared by nearly a third.
The entire office fell into a brief silence.
A few seconds later, suppressed gasps of astonishment broke out.
"Oh—!"
"This combo! It's too flashy!"
"So, you can play like this?!"
The developers, who had just been frustrated by their inability to pull off moves, now had their eyes wide open, as if they had seen the door to a new world.
Suzuki Yu watched intently, his eyes gleaming with complex emotions—astonishment, and more profoundly, deep contemplation.
Takuya did not linger in the crowd's admiration; after completing the demonstration, he proactively moved aside.
He walked over to Team Leader Shimizu and several core programmers, his gaze shifting to another monitor connected to the main board, which displayed real-time backend operation data.
"How is the fluidity of state machine transitions?"
"When both sides are inputting commands intensively, what's the input lag like? Are command sequences forming?"
"Regarding the accuracy of Hitbox and Hurtbox detection, were there any deviations in those few moments?"
He calmly posed a series of technical questions, his focus quickly shifting from player experience to the underlying implementation.
Team Leader Shimizu pointed at the data stream on the screen, his voice filled with uncontainable excitement.
"It largely meets expectations, Takuya-kun!"
"State transitions are very smooth; you can barely feel any lag."
"The logic for the hitboxes is also largely accurate; every attack in that combo just now triggered precisely."
"In terms of performance, with the current two-character combat, the frame rate is stable, and input delay is also controlled within the ideal range."
The successful validation of the core mechanics allowed all project members to breathe a sigh of relief.
This proved that Takuya's previously proposed technical concept was entirely feasible in practice.
Several team leaders with technical backgrounds nodded, their eyes showing genuine admiration for Takuya.
This young man not only had advanced concepts but also the technical capability and execution to bring them to fruition.
However, amidst the optimistic atmosphere, Tanaka, a programmer who had been quietly conducting stress tests in a corner, suddenly furrowed his brow. He was repeatedly attempting a specific offensive and defensive scenario, his fingers rapidly tapping the controller, making soft clicking sounds.
"Hmm? Wait a minute…" Tanaka mumbled, trying again.
He controlled Geese, precisely calculating the timing, and at a specific frame during Terry's punch animation, he input Geese's special move—Atemi Nage (Counter Throw).
After several attempts, a perplexing image froze on the screen.
The image showed that Geese's hand did not actually make contact with Terry's swinging fist; the areas representing attack detection (Hitbox) did not even visually overlap, with a barely perceptible gap in between. Yet, strangely, the Atemi Nage animation was successfully triggered, and Geese, as if grabbing from a distance, seized Terry and smoothly threw him backward.
"What's going on?" A colleague who had just relaxed came over to look, "He can throw without hitting?"
Tanaka shook his head and slowed down the replay again. "Look here…"
The commotion here attracted everyone's attention. Takuya immediately walked over, his gaze sharply focused on the slow-motion footage. "Stop."
The image froze. Sure enough, at the critical frame where the throw was triggered, Geese's Hurtbox seemed to expand unnaturally for a moment, or more precisely, the grab detection range of the Atemi Nage move clearly exceeded the area represented by its visual animation.
"It's a hitbox issue." Takuya immediately made his judgment, his tone steady and devoid of emotion, "It might be an overflow in the detection range setting for a specific frame."
This problem might not be complex, but its appearance, like a tiny yet irritating burr, instantly pierced the relaxed atmosphere. Everyone quieted down, looking at that small flaw on the screen.
It silently revealed how many unpredictable detection loopholes lurked beneath such complex character interaction and state transition logic. It also served as an omen, reminding everyone how much more arduous, meticulous, and patient the bug tracing and fixing work would be as more characters, and more characters with unique moves, were added to the game in the future. Suzuki Yu also leaned in to watch, his smile gone, replaced by the scrutinizing gaze typical of a designer.
The demonstration and initial technical validation concluded.
Takuya wasted no time, immediately calling Team Leader Shimizu and several core programmers and planners to a small meeting area for a quick summary.
"The core gameplay and fluidity of the demo have been validated, which is crucial and a huge success." Takuya first acknowledged the team's achievements, and everyone's faces showed a renewed sense of excitement.
"However," he shifted his tone, looking at Tanaka, who had just discovered the issue, "the Atemi Nage bug that Tanaka-kun found must be resolved immediately. It has the highest priority." He looked at the programmer responsible for the detection logic, "Thoroughly check the detection box data for all moves to ensure visual representation and actual detection are strictly consistent."
"Understood!" The programmer immediately responded, his expression serious.
"After solving this problem," Takuya continued to assign tasks, "in the next phase, our focus will be on fixing all known potential issues, and then fully dedicating ourselves to the creation and integration of new characters."
"According to the plan, prioritize completing Andy Bogard and Joe. We need to quickly build a basic playable version with at least three selectable characters; we need more data for the next phase of adjustments."
The tasks were clearly laid out, well-organized.
Then, Takuya scanned the room, his expression becoming exceptionally serious.
"Everyone, please remember one thing. From the moment we add the second and third characters, or even as we adjust the balance between Terry and Geese, we will immediately face a challenge that is more intractable and more central than technical implementation itself."
He deliberately paused, allowing everyone to digest his words.
"That is—game balance."
Takuya emphasized these words.
"How can we ensure that Terry, Andy, Joe, and potentially more characters in the future, each possess distinctly different combat styles and unique moves, making them feel completely different to play, yet maintain a relatively delicate balance in overall strength?"
"How do we avoid a situation where one character is too powerful, leading everyone to only use him, much like in many action games now? Or a character being completely ignored due to being too weak or having design flaws, becoming a waste of development resources?"
"Furthermore, how do we design a system where characters can counter each other, each with their own strengths and weaknesses? For example, how should fast characters deal with strong characters? How can characters with projectiles be countered by close-combat characters? We want players' strategic choices to be diverse, not for everyone to find the so-called optimal solution and then fall into a boring cycle of 'infinite Crack Shoot' or 'one Atemi Nage rules all'."
"This, this mastery of balance, will be the key to how far fatal fury, this unprecedented fighting game, can go and how long its lifespan will be."
These words were like a perfectly timed splash of cold water, quickly cooling the slight pride and relief that had just ignited in everyone's hearts due to the demo's success. The developers, who had just been marveling at the flashy combos and fluid system, now truly realized that creating a new game genre involved challenges far beyond technical breakthroughs.
Balance, a word that might only take up one line in meeting minutes, concealed an unimaginable amount of testing, countless parameter adjustments, and possibly even the complete overhaul of entire move designs.
Suzuki Yu stroked his chin, this time not in self-deprecation, but in deeper thought, his eyes glinting. As a seasoned game producer, he clearly understood the immense workload and design difficulty implied by the word "balance" more than anyone else.
A programmer, trying to make light of the situation, quietly muttered, "So… our daily lives from now on will involve arguing over spreadsheets and player feedback?"
The person next to him couldn't help but chuckle, and the tense atmosphere eased slightly.
Takuya also, for once, showed a hint of a smile and nodded: "To some extent, yes. Welcome to the real world of fighting game development."
They had just taken their first solid step on the path of fighting game development, and the road ahead was full of unknowns and challenges.