I have never played another game like this. Despite the death metal trappings, the game need not be particularly grimdark, and it becomes almost literally exactly as gonzo (or not) and horrifying (or not) as your group desires!
We played one of the planet suggestions in the book. It turns out that the GM does need a couple of minutes of prep to flesh out the mission, complications, opponents, etc. The game relies more on the entire group riffing on each other’s words, memories, actions, and imagery, and when you’re done, you will have had a truly fresh play experience.
Necronautilus particularly lends itself to episodic play: just make sure that you finish a mission before the end of the session, and each will be self-contained. So if you decide on a campaign, it’s okay if the group composition varies slightly from one session to the next. Go through the procedures for space complications and ship adventures if you wish, or just land on the next planet, do the mission, and do the upkeep procedure at the end.
I recommend having a good anagram solver on hand and maybe some additional word lists if you want. The rules reference in the back cover are decent, but they could probably use some page references for those situations in which you want more detail.
We’re looking forward to playing again!