Dev Blog #2: Q&A About Laxidaze

Hi everyone, welcome to our second dev blog!
We recently asked our followers on social media to send us any questions they might have on Laxidaze and we've selected some of them to answer for you all today.

How many type will Nanims have?

There will be 6 basic types and 6 special types. The special type are themselves an evolution of the basic types. For instance, water is a basic type and ice is a special type. Nanims will have 1 or 2 types with no restrictions on cross types! For instance, flame and ice can happen. Here's a list of the types followed by the special types.

Electric -> Voltaic

Water -> Ice

Air -> Sound

Earth -> Alloy

Flame -> Radiation

Nano -> Light (This will be our neutral type)

Will there be “shinies”? If so, what will be the name of that class?

Yes, there will be color variations for Nanims that have varying rarity! The name of that class of Nanims is called "Chromatic Nanims" AKA "Chromas" for short.

How open will the world be?

The world will be split into various maps, some are small and details while some are large and open. We're heavily inspired by how BioWare crafts their worlds!

What do you feel makes the game the most unique?

What we feel is most unique about Laxidaze is that it is a monster taming RPG with real-time combat that has you fight alongside your monsters (Nanims) instead of having them fight for you. We also feel that our art direction and aesthetics are unique to the monster taming genre as we are bringing a cyberpunk/cassette future vibe.

Do you have a roadmap for the development of the game and its release?

We're still very early in development, our main focus is our Kickstarter as we are currently completely self-funded. We aim to launch a Kickstarter early next year. Our Kickstarter will contain a roadmap for future development phases, as well as any releases!

What kind of combat will Laxidaze have?

Laxidaze will feature real-time 3rd person ability based combat. Weapons in this game will each have their own respective abilities/move sets and can be either ranged or melee. Players will have a basic attack that charges their ability meter (Nano-Meter) and the players use these charges to perform various abilities. In addition to real-time combat, the game will also feature a tactical mode similar to the Final Fantasy 7 remake. This allows the player to slow things down and think through their strategy in the middle of combat.

The player will also have a summoning meter that fills continuously throughout battles. Nanims can be summoned using this meter with stronger Nanims costing more of the meter. Once summoned, Nanims will battle alongside the player and if the player has raised their respective Nanim's friend-link enough they will be able to control them directly in game. We will release more info on the combat system of Laxidaze when we do our combat reveal in the coming weeks!

Will you be able to ride the Nanims?

Yes! You will be able to ride various Nanims on water, ground, and in the air. Here is a gameplay video we recently posted showcasing some Nanim riding: VIDEO

Will there be Nanim breeding in the game?

We would love to include breeding Nanims in Laxidaze and is one of our planned stretch goals in our upcoming Kickstarter!

What kind of music will Laxidaze have?

Laxidaze's soundtrack is being composed by the very talented Zach Buckley. The soundtrack will contain a mix of Acid Jazz, Lo-fi hip-hop, and other various musical genres. We are very inspired by the Persona series in this regard.

What platforms are you aiming to release Laxidaze on?

Since we have very limited funding our main focus at this moment is PC. PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch releases will be tied to stretch goals for the upcoming Laxidaze Kickstarter.

Will you be able to evolve Nanims?

Yes, Nanim's have the ability to evolve into more powerful Nanim's either by Leveling up, using certain items, raising friendship links, or other various methods depending on the specific Nanim. Some Nanims will have a single evolution path while others can have branching paths.

Will there be any sort of character customization?

Yes, the player will be able to choose between a Female or Male character at the start. In terms of equipment, since the main character is a Hunter (Bounty hunter in Cascadia) they will have the choice of various outfits that are tied to Hunter classes. Hunter outfits are separated into classes that each have their own play-style. The same goes for weapons; weapons and outfits of the same class will generally work better together. There are 6 classes that the Hunters of Cascadia will fit into and they are as follows:

-Protean: The jack-of-all-trades of the classes. The benefit of this class is that it can specialize into any of the other classes. This is the Main player's class.

-Beastmaster: This class specializes in befriending and battling with Nanims.

-Engineer: This class specializes in technical abilities as well as tech-focused weapons.

-Nanomancer: This is the "Mage" class. This class focuses on dealing elemental damage and excels at large area-of-effect attacks.

-Panzer: This is the "Tank" class. A Panzer class hunter will have more defense-focused attributes while also being able to deal massive damage.

-Phantom: This class of hunters will have stealth and high single target damage at its disposal. This is the "Assassin" class of hunter.

How many Nanims will there be in the game and will any be Legendary Nanims?

We are focusing on making our Nanims highly detailed and interactable so expect about 30+ Nanims. There will also be a few legendary Nanims planned for the base game. We intend to include adding more Nanims/legendary Nanims as stretch goals for our upcoming Kickstarter.

Will there be any multiplayer in Laxidaze?

We intend to include Nanim trading in the base game but will have other multiplayer features as stretch goals in our Kickstarter. Starting with co-op battles and dungeons and moving to PVP arenas and battles.

Thank you for reading our 2nd blog post and to everyone who submitted questions! We hope you enjoyed learning more about Laxidaze. If you want us to do more Q&A in the future, let us know! You can contact us through our contact page or directly on our discord.

Catch ya soon!