What Makes You You?

We are developing our debut work of art, check it out.

REFLECTION

Parental Advisory: Contains violence, blood, and gore.

Our Philosophy

The Meaning of Meikyo

Great games reflect reality and let players learn about themselves. Inspired by "Meikyo Shisui" (Clear Mirror, Still Water), our philosophy is to create immersive experiences with plenty of space for reflection.

Community-First

From prototype one, we design and plan around the community because great games are co-created. We listen, iterate, and give back with feedback loops, tools, and events that foster belonging. Our priority is a community everyone loves to be part of.

Latest News

Development Log #1

Stay tuned for our first major update.

TRANSMISSION INCOMING...

Careers

Join the ranks. Build the future.

No open positions currently. Check back soon.

REFLECTION

First Time Load Delay

Depending on where you are and the current traffic, there may be a delay before the comic loads on the very first visit.

Press

to use your ultimate: Reflect

Prototype Notice

This prototype was created in Godot, an engine we really love. The final release of Reflection may be developed in another engine, undergoing significant visual and mechanical improvements.

Creating Your Hero: Choosing a Morph

The Morph is so named because they can be *morphed* into what fits your playstyle, with 6 elements and 6 classes, or 36 different Morphs to choose from. Both the element and class define the Morph's characteristics. Fire morphs, for example, are expected to have a higher attack speed, and Intelligent morphs are expected to earn XP at a higher rate. The element also decides which abilities are available, with Void being the only element that grants access to all of them. The star icon you see in the stats represents Elemental Power, which increases damage and the elemental benefit.

Note: This UI is meant to be a 1280x720p window outside the full-screen game for selection only.

Creating Your Hero: Choosing an Ultimate

Unlike morphs, abilities do not have classes, but like morphs, they are made of elements as well. A hero can only have one ultimate ability. The player that decides the morph also selects the ultimate, and once chosen, that ultimate cannot be selected by any other player. Ultimates level up slower than basic abilities and typically have a higher cooldown. Properly landing or missing an ultimate can make or break a win.

Creating Your Hero: Choosing Abilities

The Reflection (opponent) of the player who chose the Morph and Ultimate decides the three basic abilities the hero will possess, thus forging the hero into existence. Basic abilities, like Ultimates and Morphs, are element-based. Like with Ultimates, once a basic ability is chosen, it cannot be chosen by others. Because both sides play with the same abilities (a symmetrical draft), drafting is based on playstyle rather than win rate (the current meta).

Creating Your Hero: Complete Electro Flow

For Morphs other than Void, only abilities of their element and of Void are available. See the full flow for Electro below.

Hovering Abilities and Showing Ultimates

In popular MOBAs, a hero's model immediately tells you what abilities you're playing against. This is not the case in Ability Draft, where the same model can have very different abilities across matches. To help players quickly know what abilities they're facing, instead of requiring memorization, the basic abilities are shown hovering next to the model, and the ultimate ability is shown in the UI when the Alt key is pressed. Hiding or highlighting them under specific scenarios can further enhance the experience.

Interacting Elements

Attack damage is multiplied by a factor based on the element of the attacker and the element of the attacked. Ability damage works the same way, the attacker's element is replaced with the ability's element for this calculation. The factors are shown in the beautiful grid below with numbers symmetrically offset from 1 across the diagonal.* Void does not interact with any element because it can be thought of as the absence or the presence of all elements, thus also called Pure.

Elemental Interactions Matrix

Element	G	P	A	H	E
G	1	1.2	0.9	0.8	1.1
P	0.8	1	1.1	1.2	0.9
A	1.1	0.9	1	1.2	0.8
H	1.2	0.8	0.8	1	1.2
E	0.9	1.1	1.2	0.8	1

Note: Attackers in rows, attacked in columns.

* More technically, the matrix exhibits additive symmetry around the principal diagonal with a center value of 1.

Parrying to Block Damage

One of the best feelings in games like Sekiro is perfectly timing a parry to block what could otherwise be fatal damage. Reflection aims to provide that satisfactory feeling. The capacity to block damage can be increased with items and abilities.

Jumping to Evade Abilities and Attackers

You can jump to evade some ground based abilities. Doing a double-jump off of an attacker stuns them, providing you with an opportunity to evade them.

Critting Without RNG

Since our philosophy is to not let the roll of a die decide a win, we must provide other means for effects like critical strikes. One way is through Abilities or Gems that temporarily allow crits upon meeting set criteria.

Doing a Fatality

Critical strikes turn into Fatality when the opponent is under a threshold health percentage.

Levelling Up and Unlocking Gems

The fifth level of a basic ability, the fourth of an ultimate, and the fifteenth hero level unlock choosing a Gem for the basic ability, the ultimate, and the Morph respectively. Ability Gems passively enhance abilities and Morph Gems provide passive effects based on the Ability and Morph respectively. Your leveling choices and the Gems you select will ultimately decide whether you best your Reflection. This is the point where the reflection breaks, so to speak.

Crafting Items: Introduction

Recipes make sense for popular MOBAs with fixed sets of abilities, but they become restrictive in Ability Draft. Therefore, Crafting your own items is not a nice-to-have but a necessity in Ability Draft, especially in a symmetrical one. This feature will distinguish the good players from the best, as it allows them to express their playstyle with greater flexibility and more room for creativity.

We have implemented a modular system that clearly separates Passive Items (which modify attributes or provide persistent effects) from Active Items (Catalysts). Passive Items are tiered and further distinguished by whether they simply modify attributes or grant special effects (Epic).

Crafting Items: Passive Items

Passive Items belong to one of 13 Paths. Forging two or more items from the same Path unlocks powerful Path Benefits, the strength of which depends on the Path Level achieved. This ensures that crafting remains a creative, strategic process, not just a mere act of bundling items. Passive Items that only modify attributes and do not restrict further forging range from Basic to Exotic, with higher tiers costing more.

Crafting Items: Epic Items

Epic Items are special items that cannot be purchased; they can only be forged. Epic Items cost no RPs. Once an Epic Item is incorporated, the forged item itself becomes Epic and cannot be used for any further forging. This limitation means players must strategically choose their Epic Items. These items often provide a unique, powerful effect instead of a simple attribute modification.

Crafting Items: Catalysts

Catalysts are active items, so named because they catalyze reactions through special effects triggered by the player. They cannot be forged with Passive Items but can be upgraded. Unlike Epic Items, Catalysts and their upgrades cost RPs. This creates a critical choice: at various points in the game, players must decide between spending RPs to buy or upgrade a Catalyst (which provides no passive attribute benefit) or using those resources to progress toward forging a game-changing Epic Item. This constant resource tension significantly adds depth to the game.

Highlighting the Common Aspects

Other aspects of Reflection are common with popular MOBAs, in how RP (Reward Points, akin to gold) and XP are earned, the risk-reward principle, monsters, jungle, lanes, towers, and the ultimate goal of defending your base while destroying your enemy's.

We Want to Hear From You

Hate it or love it, we want to hear from you. Let us know what you like and don't like about Reflection, it's still in early development. Join our discord and follow our socials!

Attributions

Comic Art

Created by Alishba Waheed

3D Character Models

Created by Saad Ajmal

Cyberpunk Noodle Kiosk – Environment Prop

Created by Marina Belov - Licensed under CC BY 4.0

sakura

Created by dimal965 - Licensed under CC BY 4.0

Ruined rock fence

Created by VladNeko - Licensed under CC BY 4.0

Glowing Rock

Created by JAY2.0 - Licensed under CC BY 4.0

Patch of Heaven - The White Tree

Created by olmopotums - Licensed under CC BY 4.0

The Buddha statue in a mountain

Created by AshSkag - Licensed under CC BY 4.0

Grappling Hook Head Piece

Created by Maxwell Walton - Licensed under CC BY 4.0

Spiky Chain

Created by Jorada - Licensed under CC BY 4.0

Rotate for best view

REFLECTION

Our Philosophy

The Meaning of Meikyo

Community-First

Latest News

Development Log #1

Careers

REFLECTION

First Time Load Delay

Teaser Notice

PYRO

HYDRO

ELECTRO

ANEMO

GEO

VOID

Prototype Notice

Creating Your Hero: Choosing a Morph

Creating Your Hero: Choosing an Ultimate

Creating Your Hero: Choosing Abilities

Creating Your Hero: Complete Electro Flow

Hovering Abilities and Showing Ultimates

Interacting Elements

Parrying to Block Damage

Jumping to Evade Abilities and Attackers

Critting Without RNG

Doing a Fatality

Levelling Up and Unlocking Gems

Crafting Items: Introduction

Crafting Items: Passive Items

Crafting Items: Epic Items

Crafting Items: Catalysts

Highlighting the Common Aspects

We Want to Hear From You

Attributions

Element	G	P	A	H	E
G	1	1.2	0.9	0.8	1.1
P	0.8	1	1.1	1.2	0.9
A	1.1	0.9	1	1.2	0.8
H	1.2	0.8	0.8	1	1.2
E	0.9	1.1	1.2	0.8	1

Element	G	P	A	H	E
G	1	1.2	0.9	0.8	1.1
P	0.8	1	1.1	1.2	0.9
A	1.1	0.9	1	1.2	0.8
H	1.2	0.8	0.8	1	1.2
E	0.9	1.1	1.2	0.8	1

Element	G	P	A	H	E
G	1	1.2	0.9	0.8	1.1
P	0.8	1	1.1	1.2	0.9
A	1.1	0.9	1	1.2	0.8
H	1.2	0.8	0.8	1	1.2
E	0.9	1.1	1.2	0.8	1