In an interesting twist, Saf told us on Discord that this is based on a pen-and-paper role-playing game he's run before. It's a Swedish game called
Mutant - År Noll that's the latest version of the original
Mutant that came out all the way back in 1984, when I was six years old:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutant_(role-playing_game)And of course, it's based off a TSR game,
Gamma World. Everything begins with TSR. That's why the Americans are not aware of foreign RPGs: because their own are the best.
As to why
Road to Eden ended up a mere tactics game, as opposed to the CRPG that Saf and I would have preferred... I would guess lack of resources. Since they didn't even manage to properly finish the tactics game, they would have barely managed to get past the character creation screen if they'd used the same resources in a CRPG lol. CRPGs are vastly more complex games than mere tactics games, and therefore demand vastly greater resources.
Still game looks gorgeous, and I will personally be picking it up when it's a tenner, and running through it in a day. Seems like a worthwhile trip, going by the review and the screens.