Stefano Buonocore
We received a copy of GenoFunk, a new introspective post-apocalyptic TTRPG, and we are pleased to let you read our review. First, we would like to thank you Stratagemma Edizioni for sending us a physical copy. Thanks also to the authors, Matteo Ignesti and Andrea Marmugi.
Anyone interested in purchasing this game can visit Stratagemma Edizioni e-commerce. The physical copy costs 29.90 euros, available only in the deluxe version; in the phase of Kickstarter, the fanzine version was also available as a more prestigious one, with an acid-etched copper foil cover.
Volume Review of GenoFunk
Externally the manual looks very good indeed. The author defines the format as anomalous, being slightly larger than an A5 sheet. The hardcover of the deluxe version (in fabric and silver effect foil) is extremely satisfying. Its pages are solid, and the volume is really pleasant to handle and display in the library. Unfortunately, the matter becomes more complicated regarding the inside of the manual.
The idea of replacing the illustrations and decorative elements of the pages with motifs and drawings created with ASCII characters is certainly original, but it also presents problems. Very often they have the effect of weighing down the page, without giving the same breadth of a classic illustration. Furthermore, they don’t even particularly help with immersion in the game: as we will see later, GenoFunk talks about people who survived a catastrophe that made it impossible to produce electricity.
The “digital” style and the use of characters therefore refers to what a world could have been before the so-called “Blasting”. Or at most one where the machines have gone crazy. When everything goes back to analogue, the chosen aesthetic ends up being misleading. This means that the fonts used for the text get “lost” among the ASCII characters, losing readability. A clear example of this is the character sheet, which is particularly chaotic.
A Writing Problem
However, from an editorial point of view, the biggest problem is the abundance of errors in GenoFunk. Right, typos are inevitable, but in this case, there are far too many. Furthermore, there are some recurring spelling errors, starting from the introduction of the manual.
Added to this are two other problems of writing in a broader sense. The first is exposure. Both in terms of the actual mechanics and the themes of the game and how to bring them out, GenoFunk seems confusing. The game terminology is anticipated without references or glossaries and is only explained later in the text. Some passages would have benefited from greater clarity to avoid misunderstandings.
Secondly, the manual relies heavily on short narrative chapters to bring out the setting. An excellent idea that has paid off since the days of Vampire the Masquerade in the early 90s. Some repeat already clear concepts or refer to the period before the Blasting without bringing much to the game. Others look for absolutely unjustified shock value; an expedient which, in an attempt to arouse a strong reaction in the reader, risks causing a sense of disgust which is not at all useful for the game. Less hype and more themed content would probably have been more beneficial in these circumstances.
GenoFunk: Setting Review
The premises of GenoFunk might seem like those of a common post-apocalyptic game. In a future in which humanity is governed by megacorporations with continental extension and in which (between prosthetics, surgery and virtual reality) transhumanism is a fact, it is no longer possible to produce electricity. This is not a simple EMP pulse: following the Blasting any attempt to generate electricity automatically fails.
This has not only created the obvious disasters that one might expect in a highly digitalized society and with a large portion of the population with grafts replacing parts of the body. It has also made it impossible to synthesize and deliver the medicine that can stop it Se.S, or Swer-Sterling Syndrome. We are talking about a genetic pathology that affects the mother’s womb and which imposes a violent degeneration of the organism. The tablets supplied by the European company were able to arrest him, but after the Blasting, civil society collapsed and no one was able to produce them anymore, much less deliver them.
A Game with Mature Themes
GenoFunk offers a very precise gaming experience. In a world completely in ruins, the characters are not heroes, but survivors who cling to the hope of a remnant of civilization. They don’t want to solve the situation or save the world, they just want to get a cure. The entire game has a narrative structure which, right from the creation of the character, pushes you to face very strong scenes from an emotional point of view, keeping missions and clashes only as dramatic elements.
Finding a cure is left to the narrator’s discretion, but the game pushes towards a certain pessimism. The heart of GenoFunk is not the path, but the deepening of the relationship between the characters and their decay. A very strong issue, which would have required greater attention to security tools. Instead, we find a series of optional suggestions for introducing bleeding openly into the game, but not on how to manage it.
Game Structure Review of GenoFunk
The game introduces some certainly peculiar mechanics, starting with character creation. Before even distributing points between Body, Mind and Spirit statistics, players will assign an Archetype. Players will “assign”, not “choose”: the present at the table will associate each player with one Archetype, and the Master will only intervene in the event of a draw.
Archetypes do not interfere with the Character’s Statistics but determine his attitude. All inspired by The Wizard of Oz, indicate his personality and above all his character defects. Each Archetype also gives an active impulse to the game, proposing the specifications of some elements that must be tailored to its characterization:
- Two background scenes, you will play in the first session. The other players can be involved as NPCs in this phase, but these are scenes serving the characterization of a single character;
- two questions, which help apply the archetype to the created character, making them more concrete;
- one NPS which, by respecting specific criteria, becomes a fundamental part of the game.
Ideally, GenoFunk should have a zero session, an introductory one and then a further one for each character, before the epilogue. Each of the sessions in the middle phase should be dedicated to exploring a single character, dissecting the themes and bringing them to the centre of everyone’s attention. It should be noted that the game has no specific mechanics, for this reason: it is only a narrative structure suggested to the master.
Game Mechanics
The regulatory structure of GenoFunk is pretty simple though, as anticipated in this review, presented confusingly. You roll a six-sided die and succeed with a result of 5 or 6. However, there are some tricks to improve the chances of success, such as Consuming a Characteristic, or temporarily decreasing its score. Instead, you can obtain an automatic success or a drastic increase in the chances of success by Deleting it, or decreasing its score permanently.
Deleting Characteristics is a fundamental point of the game. In addition to the player’s choice, it is an operation that occurs every Dawn (when a day and/or a game session starts). For each ability point deleted, the character’s Karma increases by one. This moves two mechanics at the base of the game.
The accumulation of Karma points influences, according to a fixed deadline indicated on the card, the changes to the character’s Genome. These are the symptoms of the disease, to be rolled randomly on special tables, which become increasingly serious and disabling as the game progresses. If the first stage has no mechanical but only interpretative effects, the fifth alters the character’s genetics in such a profound way as to make it something no longer human.
Review of GenoFunk: Shared Storytelling
GenoFunk places particular emphasis on the aspects of shared storytelling, going so far as to specify that the further you advance in the game the more relevant this becomes. The trigger mechanism is always the Karma; its points can be used to advance along the Golden Path (another reference to The Wizard of Oz). At each step, precise rules are dictated that allow you to influence the narration of the master or to insert specific elements.
It must be said that despite the strong impact that the Golden Path can have on the game, the rules to follow are extremely strict and can only be applied under certain conditions. It would almost be more correct to say that there is the possibility of modifying the storytelling, sharing this power with the game mechanics before even with the players themselves.
Conclusions of the Review of GenoFunk
GenoFunk is a very particular and ambitious project. The idea of focusing the game on the psychological evolution of the character is always an excellent card to play. Combining it with its genetic degeneration and the player’s power to influence the narrative is an excellent intuition.
Unfortunately, GenoFunk fails to communicate this idea effectively. This game is displayed chaotically and the attempt to characterize the volume with original graphic choices makes it even more difficult to deal with. The presence of typos and errors is excessive for a product of this level, as well as leaving the impression of not having sufficiently highlighted the point of the game. The basic idea is solid and interesting, unfortunately, it did not manage to overcome the development phase in an equally solid way.
You can use GenoFunk for very interesting gaming sessions. Anyone interested in exploring the link between physical, social and psychological degeneration will find interesting ideas. But you must bear in mind that it will take a great deal of work by the master to compensate for these volume and game problems and that everything will have to be strengthened with security tools on which the GenoFunk finds himself unprepared.
