This post-apocalyptic game is one of the scions of Gamma World. The author wrote one of the GW novels that came out with the 7th edition of that game. Genestorm is an adaptation of that setting, and a pretty good game to boot. It is without a doubt on the gonzo side of the PA settings, including plant/animal hybrids as both creatures to interact with and player characters. The ruleset uses d6s and seems fairly rules medium (skill based, no classes). But that isn't why I bought it. I got it for the setting.

The world is very much what one would expect from a GW scion- weird technology, stranger mutants and outright bizarre locations. For the last, there are even tears in space that lead to other universes that will destroy the body and mind over time. Tech is mostly of the jury-rigged sort with the occasional artifact of the ancients for the characters to play with. And as for mutation, there isn't that many, though they are designed to be easily reskinned to allow for a wide diversity of appearances and effects. Genestorm also has no mental mutations of any sort, only physical. Humans can be non-mutants or mutants. And then there are those that are entirely or primarily animals and those that are entirely or primarily plants. There is so much gene mixing (see below for why) that animals such as nudibranches (sea slugs) and armidillos are mentioned as potential parental species.

The described setting isn't terribly flavorful- that is what the supplement is for. For something that is meant to be the opposite of grimdark, it does have one thing that is gruesome- cash comes in the form of ID chips that were implanted in the people before the cataclysm. That means the player characters can get rich by tearing apart old bodies they find in ancient ruins. There are also suggestions on how to make money by stripping broken tech for parts and chemicals. There is an adventure, a mystery that has the PCs searching for a pile of treasure that was hidden by a prospector. I don't want to give anything away, so other than missing maps (which aren't that important anyways), it well written in my opinion.

The best chapter is that one creatures. The setting posits a virus that escaped and merged the genetics of all the non-microbial species it encountered. It is called Chop Shop and it is an obvious homage to Mix Master, the microbe that was making monsters in Tremors the Series (thumbs up for the reference, Mr. Kidd!) The example creatures comes in dangerous predators, useful critters and riding beasts that have stat blocks and a lot more that do not have stats as they are mostly harmless to the player characters. A very few examples- melon pigs are watermelon/hog hybrids useful for their meat and water content, lea-moos are plant/cow hybrids used as mounts and pack beasts, mega-moths are huge canine/moth hybrids that eat smaller creatures, skulks are rat/vulture hybrids that are a primary scavenger on the plains and be wary of those mentioning chomps or chompers. The former are massive worms (no snake tongues) that attack from below whereas chompers are large cat/mantid hybrids that are almost as massive as the moths.

The only negative about the book for me is the art. It is great, but the pieces are small (the examples on the indiegogo page are shrunken down in the book) and scattered in the book- except for a few full page works. With all the nifty critters, I was hoping for more art on them.

People who like furry games, gonzo post-apocalyptic settings and just something out there should get a kick out of Genestorm.