The advertisement offered the ultimate Virtual Reality experience. Using a new technology known as Immersive Virtual Reality or IVR you could truly experience the game as if you were in it. For someone who has been confined to a wheelchair all of his life, the promise was impossible to ignore but only a few would be invited to take part in the Alpha test of the new game. Devon decided he would be one of those few
To ensure he would be chosen he took the most unlikely combination of skills specializing primarily as a craftsman and secondarily as a healer. The best race for these skill trees is a Gnome but that further weakens his ability to fight and survive. Still, it is only the Alpha test and once in he can change it when they move to Closed Beta.
What could go wrong? Soon he finds out just how weak his choices seem to the developers who figure he will die a lot and always be a Nobody. Name chosen Gnobody sets out to take on Angromoria and it is everything he could hope for until it becomes the only thing he may ever know.
My Opinion: 362 pg, $3.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
This is a trapped in the game, slice of life story with an emphasis on crafting in the first half of the novel. In the second half of the novel, it shifts to a less interesting story about the main character (MC), Gnobody, running from players looking to collect a first kill bounty on him.
The story on the whole is very talkie. Like, 40% of the novel is dialogue or summary of some kind. There’s a great opening, that got me hooked by the 3% mark, but the MC doesn’t get into the game until the 12% and doesn’t go full immersion till 21% mark. Just about everything between 3 and 12% is almost entirely dialogue. And while there are interesting speculative thoughts and some game mechanic descriptions, it’s a lot of talking, and that may turn off some readers hoping for more action.
Once in the game, the MC has as couple neat fights but the first half of the story is focuses on crafting and a little romance. It’s great if you like that kind of stuff, but not if you’re looking for an action story. I’m a big fan of crafting and world building and this part has that in spades.
The last half of the story gets a bit more action oriented. However, in all honesty combat isn’t the strong suit of the story. Crafting, dialogue, punny humor, interpersonal relationships, and world building is. So the attempts to kill the MC for a bounty (which doesn’t really make sense anyways), almost feel like interruptions to an otherwise fun slice of life story.
Overall, I liked the story but it dropped what I liked the best about it in the 2nd half. But it is still an nice crafting story with an good punny sense of humor.
Score: 6 out of 10
Alpha Testing: Angromoria LitRPG Adventure