The Apocalypse Game has begun, and all of humanity is up for grabs. To the victor go the spoils.
My name is Killian Dunn. I'm eighteen, a high school senior, a gamer, and, oh yeah, the Harbinger of the Apocalypse. Not exactly what I had in mind as a career path.
Reality took a nosedive when Armageddon came knocking. It brought with it classes, levels, and skills, as well as a horde of Lovecraftian abominations to use them on.
I never wanted any of this, but the sick god who orchestrated this whole nightmare has my family. Their lives are forfeit if I refuse to play his game.
He left me no choice but to accept my role and play my part—not as just another piece on the chessboard, but as the king—the Demon Lord of the Black.
But if I'm the villain, then there must also be a hero. On the side of White stands the Archangel, and they're as determined as I am to win.
The prize? A single wish.
With it, I can protect my family, fix everything that's broken, and save the whole damn world.
I just have to destroy it first.
My Opinion: 562 pages, $4.99, Available On Kindle Unlimited
In general I’ve really enjoyed the RPG Apocalypse sub genre of LitRPG, but this one didn’t work for me. The setup is ok, but felt very forced in several respects.
The main character (MC) doesn’t get a choice in becoming the Demon Lord and over and over again reveals this big secret despite ample evidence that people are going to assume he’s evil for just having the class, which never made sense to me in the first place. Still, his response? To learn from his error and keep his secret from people he’s literally only known for hours? Nope, just whine about it being unfair. I mean, I get that part of the plot revolves around him finding people to fill his faction roles, but that’s definitely what it felt like. Forced decisions to advance a plot, not natural ones.
Additionally, the game mechanics, while shown throughout the story never really felt like the numbers shown were really impactful. The MC invests stat points and grows in levels but he never seems to struggle and despite any deficiencies in either experience fighting or stats always wins and his powers felt like they exceeded what a low level character should be able to do. Especially since everyone and everything have had a month jump start to grow more powerful. The other aspects of the game mechanics were decent and I thought the faction expansion stuff was original.
Overall, the action was fine, but too much of the story, for me anyways, felt forced. I never felt a sense of danger for the MC or anyone really. Which was weird considering it's supposed to be set in the RPG Apocalypse. Other folks really enjoyed the story, it just didn’t work for me.
Score: 6 out of 10
Apocalypse Game: A LitRPG Adventure (The Chessboard War Book 1)