Gene Splicing is a traditional style party-based first-person role-playing game in a science fiction setting, with grid-based movement and turn-based combat. The story takes place in near future, the latter part of the 21st. century to be exact, when increased human lifespan and overpopulation prompts the Earth’s governments to actively promote space colonisation. A new entity called the Space Security Agency (SSA) is established to monitor off-world activity and maintain order. The game starts with the player, as a new agent of the SSA, arriving at the agency’s HQ on the Moon. An alarm signal has been received from the Skycorp Research Facility on the Moon, and the player is sent to investigate after completing a training course in the headquarters.
The gameplay mechanics can be compared to those found in early first-person computer RPGs like The Bard’s Tale, albeit in a science fiction setting. The game world is represented as a flat map divided into squares, with one window of the game interface showing a static first-person, pseudo-3D view of the surroundings, which shows only the most essential details like walls and doors. Encounters are displayed as separate drawings, static or with limited animation (unlike more modern titles where enemy sprites are imposed on the scenery view). For example, during combat, the first-person view is replaced by an animated image of the foe the player is facing. Items found in the game world often have no visual representation at all - only a text message is displayed if the player walks into a square that contains an item.
The game starts with the player character being alone, but eventually other characters join the party. Similar to The Bard’s Tale and other such games, multiple characters can be arranged in a battle order, with some being in the front row and others in the back, unreachable for close-range attacks during combat. There are also friendly NPCs that provide dialogue, clues and items.
The character system is based on four attributes: Strength, Intelligence, Agility and Endurance. These determine a character’s hit points, attack and defence ability, item carrying capacity, and the PSI ability which is the sci-fi equivalent of magic. Characters level up based on the accumulated experience points, up to the maximum level of 20.
Stylistically, Gene Splicing is quite similar to the previous game by Nachos Software, Psionics, which also features comparable playing mechanics. It was released and distributed as freeware.
