Meddling gods. A magical card system. An apocalypse no one could have predicted.
Jake is working at the neighborhood market under his apartment when the world ends. He expected nuclear war, a computer virus, or even climate change burning everyone to a crisp to bring about the downfall of civilization. But cruel and arbitrary gods from another world? Who would have guessed that?
When these cruel gods shuffled Earth like a deck of cards, nothing was in the same place anymore. Monsters, dungeons, and magical items appear scattered across the globe. And suddenly, everyone has access to a new, strange magical card system that gives them magical powers.
Jake, wasting his day slacking off in the cooler, as he usually did, found himself alone in a completely new and very dangerous world. Can he learn to survive? Can he collect enough cards and create a good enough deck to fight back against the monsters that have overtaken his former home? And why are these strange people that look a lot like elves knocking on the door of the market he is hiding in and asking to buy some of his goods?
The gods may have stacked the deck against him, but Jake just might have a few cards up his sleeve that will help him survive.
My Opinion: 773 pages, $4.99, Available On Kindle Unlimited
This is a serial story with several types of progression systems. The setting is the RPG apocalypse where earth is broken up and mixed with dungeons and monsters roam freely. Because the story is a slice of life and a serial, as it's collected it almost feels like two large arcs.
The first 40%, RPG Apocalypse with dungeon diving, card collecting and leveling, minor merchants stuff (the magical market bit), some relationship building to build up the are the main characters (MV) finds himself in and a slower introduction to the new rules of the world. After the 40% mark though, the story shifts as the MC is pushed into a new environment with the benefit of all the work he put into developing his cards. It's here that he has to develop and grow in power without using a more fantasy/cultivation magic system. It's definitely forced, but also provides a change of scenery and expands the world building. Still lots of action adventure and some good world building but I was really disappointed that the RPG progression from the card system takes a big back seat for the majority of the story and ends up feeling more like a currency system and point of power division among classes.
On the game mechanic side of things, I really enjoyed the first half of the story. The card system is pretty robust with a huge variety of cards based on people’s fantasy races or what kind of monster they are. Killing monsters or clearing dungeons gets you special magical cards with spells, martial abilities, passive bonuses, and more. The cards can be upgraded/leveled by sacrificing other cards or combined with their own type to evolve them.This allows for some really good creativity as cards can be swapped out for different synergies and strategies. Later in the story, about 40% in, another system emerges that takes ambient magical energy to cast spell-like abilities, and power carved runes that have a variety of effects. The MC still grows in power, but it's not put in RPG terms like leveling anymore and though the card system still exists it really isn’t used by the MC except to gain access to new magic domains. Much later other power sources emerge but these are the two developed by the main character (MC).
Overall, there’s a lot to enjoy in the story. Good action-adventure, good world building, good character and relationship development. There are places the story felt really forced to push the MC in a direction that would change locations or have him start over, but I also understand that comes with a serial story trying to keep things interesting. However, I was disappointed with the loss of the card system that I’d come to enjoy. I mean, it doesn’t disappear but the MCs progression leaves it behind after the 40% mark. Still, good story, though overall its more gamelit than LitRPG.
Score: 7.6 out of 10