i just want to talk about Dungeon Crawler Carl

Delphia@lemmy.world to [Outdated, please look at pinned post] Casual Conversation@lemmy.world – 36 points –

Seriously, I love this series so much. The Audiobooks are amazing.

30

https://shepherd.com/book/dungeon-crawler-carl

Its hard to find a synopsis that is a good size.

Its just a really fantastic litrpg. Rich plot and characters, childish dick jokes and adult moments that make you want to message the author and go "wtf man?!?" Theres stuff that was laid in in book 1 thats finally getting paid off in book 6.

Its just really bloody good.

So, uh, tell me about it, then.

Aliens are going to strip mine earth, but to give the illusion of fairness those who survive the initial collection are given a choice, live on the surface knocked effectively back to the stone age or enter into an 18 floor dungeon that is effectively the galaxies largest game show.

The game is serious, the deaths are real and grusome. In the interest of fairness theres an AI controlling the game and the crawlers can change race, choose classes, level and gather loot and power as the dungeon goes on, but the game is rigged. Nobody has ever survived beyond the 13th floor.

This season with infighting between the alien governments, the AI slowly going a little batshit insane and one particularly determined crawler and his (now sapient) ex girlfriends cat. Who knows?

Plot sounds vaguely Battlefield Earth-ish.

Not really.

Think Squid Game meets Diablo made by reality tv producers doing way too much coke.

Aliens strip mining earth: tick.

Humans on the outside living without tech: tick.

Humans on the inside slaves without hope: tick.

One human going to make a difference: tick.

B grade at best: tick.

You see, Carl is a Dungeon Crawler.

By far the best LitRPG out there, the only problem is Amazon thinks you want nothing but them afterwards.

The "Noobtown" series is also pretty good, its no DCC but it has a certain charm.

There's silly references and then there's just plain stupid. I can continue Dungeon Crawler Carl because it pulls back at least a little on the stupid. I put down Noobtown and won't be picking it back up again.

The first few books are pretty rough, but the author does improve with each one.

It was filler between DCC books for me, if it hadnt been I probably wouldnt have stuck with it.

Jeff Haynes is sooo good! And I love the guest narrators too. I saw some people on Reddit say that they didn't like the Scottish train engineer a couple years ago, but I thought that was rather enjoyable too.

Ok I'll keep in mind, I was wondering it would be good to get into a series of audiobooks lately.

So, I gather from your other comments this is a mostly humorous series? Or not really?

Theres a lot of humor, which is a good thing because it gets REALLY grim at times too.

I wont be giving too much away when I say the achievements announcements are irritating at first, but if you can bear with them they are one of the best things about the series.

I'm on the very first audiobook and liking it so far. I didn't find the announcements irritating yet, I think they really help set the tone of the story and environment. Looking forward to them getting better, thanks for suggesting this!

I only mentioned that because I put some guys from work onto the series and two of them said "The announcements are really annoying"

I had to tell them that firstly, they become less frequent later. Secondly you need to think of them as the voice of the A.I who effectlively is a character in their own right and thirdly they can be fucking funny.

Lol no worries, I noticed the thing has a bit of a personality... It seems to have a barefoot squishing fetish too, at least for now haha

Have you also listened to He who fights with monsters?

That series is pretty great and I had never gotten into the litrpg or isekai genres before then.

Ok you REALLY should have mentioned that Jason was Australian. Because I am also Australian and that is a colossal novelty for me. For once the protagonist isnt an average white American.

I'm glad you checked it out. It's quite a fun and absurd series.

No but its on my list.

I have a few hours of monotonous shit at work a day when I fit my books in and Ive been saving thay one for the Xmas busy period so I can hook in and let it roll.

6 books. Goddammit Donut, I just read 6 books and the book 7 won't be out for ages.

I need my carl fix!!!!

Mayor of Noobtown is sillier and honestly not as good but it has its moments.

He Who Fights with Monsters is also really good.

Love it too. Definitely one of the best litrpgs Iโ€™ve read. I was really excited for the audio immersion but sadly I thought the first episode wasnโ€™t quite as good. I listened to Kaiju battlefield surgeon and I imagined it to be like that. And it was, but a lot of small mistakes ended up making it feel a little rushed. KBS was actually really good too. Very enjoyed that one as well. Though I havenโ€™t read the book for that yet, only listened to the cinematic audio.

Not going to lie, I find cinematic audio to be annoying as fuck. It just doesnt work for me. Audiobooks with some post processing on the voices and some sound effects works best.

Fair enough. I also donโ€™t usually like it. I hate things like graphic audio for example. But for some reason KBS just worked for me.