I spent a lot of my youth watching movies that were made with low, low budgets. Whether on HBO, rented from the local video store or with robot pals like Crow and Tom Servo, I love these little chunks of creativity from people who maybe don’t always have the talent (or money) to properly express their ideas. Designer Brian Shutter loves these movies as well. There are a lot of callbacks to these movies in Neon Lords of the Toxic Wasteland. He sent me home from a convention with a copy of the rules in hand. Did I enjoy the glow? Let’s play to find out.
Neon Lords of the Toxic Wasteland casts players as heroes in an unlikely apocalypse wandering the world trying to stop warlords and alien entities from finishing up the end of the world that started when aliens and magic both decided to return to Earth at around the same time. These are not adventures in dusty Mad-Max style deserts but something more like the urban wreckage of Class of Nuke Em High or Night of the Comet. The overall tone is dark but silly. How else could you describe a game where the character classes include mutant unicorns and killer robots built to look like Ronald Regan?
The game is modeled on classic B/X D&D with roll under stat checks and roll over saves and combat. Each class is given unique abilities loaded with flavor. Yes, there’s a stealth based class but it’s an 80’s style ninja loaded with plenty of Chuck Norris references. The classes are further customized with abilities powered by points of pools and each having a bespoke critical success table called To The Max. Even a character’s haircut matters. That’s how the designer gets around the sticky wicket of races, ancestries and heritages. Your mohawk or mullet adjust your ability scores or gives you an extra cool thing to do.
The over the top design continues in the graphic elements chock full of VHS stickers and wild headers that never met a font they didn’t like. The game looks like someone took all their old doodled up D&D notebooks, stuffed them into a Trapper Keeper and then threw that down the stairs of their local Blockbuster Video. This is not a game about tense tactical encounters or heart wrenching drama. This is a game where you do a backflip throwing a fist full of exploding ninja stars while your buddy the Brutalcorn lays down cover fire with double Uzis. It’s style over substance.
I really like the style. In addition to those direct to video films, Neon Lords of the Toxic Wasteland also feels like a tribute to the great 90s kitchen sink games like RIFTS and Torg. Those games weren’t concerned with game balance or tight mechanics. They wanted to get you and your friends telling stories about cyborgs punching dinosaurs inside a vampire’s castle. This game feels like the version someone put together from their older siblings copies of those games before their parents threw the books out due to the Satanic Panic. That’s why the classes feel a little top heavy. This game strikes me as built for one shots and short campaign play and the designer wants to get the fun toys in the hands of players more quickly. A player shouldn’t have to wait until fifth level to have a keytar duel wil Satan.
What put the game over the top was the obvious love and humor the designer has about the genre. Here the game reminds me of another great 90’s game in Feng Shui. Comedy is hard and it’s even harder when you have to slip it into a book in between level benefit charts. Of course the spell descriptions are usually movie references. This is also a world where Macho Man Randy Savage is the chief deity and players can buy 3-liter bottles of Extreme Nacho Flavored Mega Fizz. There’s an adventure that’s an homage to Chopping Mall, the greatest teenage furniture store orgy interrupted by killer mallcop robots film ever made. If any of those concepts made you crack a smile or unlocked a memory, Neon Lords of the Toxic Wasteland might be worth checking out.
Bottom Line: Neon Lords of the Toxic Wasteland is a perfect combination of Saturday morning cartoon humor, Saturday afternoon games with friends and Saturday night movie marathons that only stop when the VCR runs out of tapes to watch.
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