Re:
1) A lot of the mechanics are built for combat, yes. But the majority of the game actually takes place - from what I've seen in replays and from reading exert logs from other games - in exploration, hunting fragments of memory (of what/who you used to be) or hunting some nebulous goal you can half remember. Depending on the game, your goals are even spelled out by the Necromancer itself. I'll be the first to admit the mechanics outside of combat are a bit loose, with a relatively simple and flat die system modified by the 'parts' you have that still work - such as eyes - but I suspect that's on purpose to help the narrative tone. This RPG is made by the same fellows who created 'Maid RPG', to give you an idea. Wonky japanese fast-pace built around one or two sessions rather than an extended campaign. Which is roughly where I'd like to keep it - even at play-by-post speeds, I don't expect a game to take more than three or four months to wrap up. Short and sweet sessions.
Combat - even physical damage - is, in and of itself, not that dangerous to the Dolls. You can't die. You can be torn to absolute pieces, but so long as one of you survives, there's a chance to tape/sew/stitch/glue the others back together using spare parts taken from the environment or from enemies. The real danger is madness. The body may live forever, but the mind can break, leaving just another dead thing in a world of walking dead things. There's only two ways to handle that, outside of a few special abilities. One is by spending 'favor', the game's equivalent of XP for putting on an amusing display for the Necromancer in your struggles. The other is leaning on your fellow Dolls for support and stabilization.
This is a team-based game. A lone Doll is Hard Mode.
2) There actually is a mutation called 'Boy' that makes it easier to converse with you. I've seen HRs that make that mutation 'Cute' instead, thus letting players play either gender. You'll have to expand upon the humanoid bit, since one of the primary classes - mutant - is, in fact, about being a monstrosity sewn of other monstrosities upon the frame of a child. Or, at least, young person. I believe - despite the pictations and expectations - that the average roll of age winds up in the mid-teens. If you choose to roll for age rather than select. Really, all of the classes are rather dehumanizing in their own right.
Either way, in the game's lore, each Doll is created for a specific purpose by the Necromancers, who basically rule the dead world for their own amusement. Either pitting their amnesiac Dolls against their own forces, retelling old and forgotten stories, or whatever crosses the twisted mind of someone with the power to make reality what they want.
It's a game about grim-cuteness, in essence. Hope in tragedy, fading flowers on the grave, and so forth. Taking one of your legs and giving it to your fellow Doll so that you both can keep hobbling along together. It's not everyone's cup of tea, and I was very hesitant at first, but the more I read the replays and the exerts, the more interested I became. Thus, this thread.
3)
It should be in the wiki search. I'll try to find a few more of the replay threads I stumbled across as well.
The semi-official replay - where in what I think is one of the early developers explains a few things - is there. And - like I said - the ending goes to a very, very strange place I have no intentions of visiting. Ever.
It also suffers from translation garble:
https://tlwiki.org/?title=Nechronica:Replay
One of the threads that initially perked my interest, however, was here:
https://yuki.la/tg/37950122
This review, meanwhile, should give you a rather clearer impression of what the game is about, since it's written by an actual professional rather than myself.
https://d66roc.wordpress.com/2...he-long-long-sequel/
TL;DR
Like many contemporary games (such as Apocalypse World), Nechronica gives you a setting and some light inspiration with a backbone of simple rolls to move the narrative forward. It's more about the story than the mechanics, so you'd have to shave some crunchy roll mindset off.
This message was last edited by the user at 04:07, Wed 06 June 2018.