Could you defeat the world's hardest immersive game?
Alexandria Duke must learn how to or risk losing everything.
When Alex joins Gamemakers Online, she finds there are no newbie areas, no tutorials, and nothing but vicious critters hunting her down. This seems like an impossible task but Alex is a veteran platinum achievement hunter who has solved previously unwinnable scenarios. She won't give up now.As she delves deeper into the game, she discovers it hides sinister secrets. If she can't survive the first year in Gamemakers Online then she'll lose more than her own life.
My Opinion: 317 pages, $3.99, Available On Kindle Unlimited
A decent slice of life XP grind end capped by some good character development. The main character (MC) goes from her trailer home to a magical academy where she has a chance to get a top notch magical education in a game related house where she has to level up playing a special game or get kicked out.
The main character (MC) is developed very well in the first 10% and the last 15% of the story. I was almost instantly rooting for her and while I foresaw how the real world story would turn out it didn’t make it any less well written. The actual real world is a little odd in that it’s a modern magical world, that still somehow has VR in it. I think the author is just trying to tie it in with his existing magical academy series. Still, the MC is in the game world by the 12% mark and the story focuses early on survival and learning the rules of this RPG fantasy world and then is a big XP grind.
Game mechanic wise, nothing special here. Standard levels, stats. Once the MC gets her class, there’s a nice expansion of spells and how she uses them intelligently to XP grind. Though there is a connection between the real world magic and the game world, it’s not particularly detailed until near the end of the story. You see quests, damage notifications, item descriptions, and even some regular crafting. However, there are several time jumps and level jumps that bothered me, with the MC going from level 5 to 11 in a single sentence and later level 0 to 16 in a paragraph. It made some of her power gains feel unearned. Didn’t ruin the story, it’s setup well enough, but did lesson my enjoyment on the RPG side.
Overall, a well told story that does a good job of developing the MC’s character. The world building is well done and there are enough ‘ready player one’ type of pop culture references that it will feel funny, if a little forced. While the XP grind is a bit wand wavy at times the good character development makes up for it.
Score: 7.1 out of 10
The Warped Forest: A Hundred Halls LitRPG and GameLit Novel (Gamemakers Online Book 1)