The Layered Page
Mid. Uses the tropes of LitRPG nicely however: Respawning, leveling, weaving it into themes of abilities and scene to scene strategizing. But it's the whole rest of the story -- to believably sell you what is at stake for the main protagonist set inside "just a game" -- that makes it rather cringe: Crippled main char, barely not adult; so not being taken serious, with fatally ill mother in a post apolocalyptic world, where you can basically not do anything other than be inside the game -- how convenient.
The book however thematizes nicely in game politics and has some fun character interactions. The progression to becoming a Dodge tank Is imaginative and exiting. However you can sense that the author is not a gamer. They oversimplify games to simulated worlds with abilities. Muddling gaming up as simulated worlds where laws apply the same across genres. The Arena segment is the best showcase of this narrow conceptualization, and it just triggered me.
Mid. Uses the tropes of LitRPG nicely however: Respawning, leveling, weaving it into themes of abilities and scene to scene strategizing. But it's the whole rest of the story -- to believably sell you what is at stake for the main protagonist set inside "just a game" -- that makes it rather cringe: Crippled main char, barely not adult; so not being taken serious, with fatally ill mother in a post apolocalyptic world, where you can basically not do anything other than be inside the game -- how convenient.
The book however thematizes nicely in game politics and has some fun character interactions. The progression to becoming a Dodge tank Is imaginative and exiting. However you can sense that the author is not a gamer. They oversimplify games to simulated worlds with abilities. Muddling gaming up as simulated worlds where laws apply the same across genres. The Arena segment is the best showcase of this narrow conceptualization, and it just triggered me.