After being approached by the military with a contract he couldn't refuse, JAMES winds up uploaded into a virtual reality game as a beta tester. Waking up in the Great Savanna, James struggles with a less-than-useful interface before he comes across two creatures locked in battle. The shoulder high grass allows him glimpses of a lion-esque creature fending off a torrent of scales and claws. Sneaking up to steal a better look at the surreal situation, James discovers two things.
1. Getting hurt in the game.... well hurts!
2. This noble race of lion-men, named Martyrs, have almost been decimated by the scaled lizard creatures.
By unwillingly saving the life of a Martyr cub, James is adopted into their village. He grows to love the beauty of the Great Savanna and his adopted game brother, whose life he saved... That is until PATRICK arrives, and the tranquility of the game is shattered.
James embarks on a mission for answers to his steadily increasing list of questions. On the top of that list,
"What the hell happened to the human race, and where is my damn brother!?"
LitRPG Categories = Town Building & MOBA
My Opinion: 305 pages, $3.99, Available on Kindle Unlimited
This is a slice of life LitRPG story. Though it starts out with a trapped in the game premise, it feels more like it’s transported to the game world. The NPCs each have unique personalities and the larger world have full fleshed out histories and culture. The story follows the main character (MC), James, who’s uploaded into a full immersion game on what he thinks is a 6 month job. James has to figure out how the game mechanics in the world work and how to survive. Thankfully he’s helped along by a tribe of lion-men who eventually look to James for help in return. Most of the story just follows James around as he fights, levels, learns the RPG mechanics, and adventures.
The game mechanics in the story start out pretty light but more detail is gradually revealed as the story goes on. By about the 20% mark you get full on details about just about everything including build theorizing, how stats work, how to increase skills, a little bit of crafting, and level advancements. Eventually, town building mechanics are introduced. As is a MOBA style game play with monsters running down lanes and the MC and his team having to beat them. It’s a thing.
Overall, a pretty decent read if you enjoy slice of life stories. I do so I had a good read. Though, I did notice that towards the end of the novel much of the RPG parts seemed to become less prominent.
Score: 7.2 out of 10