Hell. This was absolute hell. Every day was hell to 2244, an NPC in the Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game known as AO. Just another prisoner of the game like all NPCs, she never expected her wish for freedom to be granted in such a grandiose way; a big event in the game leads to her suddenly becoming a mother, a hellspawn, and a queen, all within a matter of moments. Now tasked with maintaining a balance between keeping the Game Masters happy and trying to take down all of AO, 2244 discovers that there's much more to this game than just slavery and item upgrades.
My Opinion: 177 pages, $5.95, Available On Kindle Unlimited
Definitely not with the purchase price of almost $6, but a decent KU read. The story is about an NPC that expands beyond her system defined role as an item shopkeeper into a villain. The AI in the story are actually copied minds of actors and paid people and the AI are tortured by the System if they don’t roleplay or don’t fulfill their roles. But with a new expansion to the MMO, the main character (MC), gets a change in designation and becomes a free roaming villain that has to create an army while not pissing off the GMs by going out of her new role and deciding if she's going to break the game or try to take it over. It’s a satirical take on the awakened AI concept.
The MMO stuff is told from the perspective of the NPC, which was a little different, though the base intelligence of the AI is still human so it’s not entirely a fresh AI that hasn’t ever experienced the real world. The actual game mechanics in the story aren’t new, pretty standard MMORPG stuff with no real crunchy details. Definitely more GameLit than LitRPG since the MC is given her level by the GMs and not from any earned progression. Still, she does have to collect her army, figure out how to make them powerful enough to oppose the players. She uses some nice exploits and bugs to gain what she wants.
Overall, it’s a good KU read. But the NPC to game villain story was fresh enough that it was entertaining, even if the story was on the shorter side.
Score: 7.4 out of 10