We NEED to talk about Dungeon Crawler Carl . . . LitRPG

0:00 Hello, welcome to Guacaloupe. Thank you for being here. Today I need to have a conversation with you because I have a big issue coming up very soon. You see, I recently, meaning in the last year and a half or so, got into the RPG lit genre. I think it's actually lit RPG, but whatever the case. And I started with what is arguably the best in the entire genre. Not only when it comes to writing, character development, world exploration, big moments that just make you stand up out of your seat, which there have been a number in every book in this series. but also one of the best, if not the best, when it comes to audio production as well because so far I've been reading and listening to all of these books through Audible. Yeah, I know there's some issues going on right now with their uh structure. If you're not familiar with that, you should look into it. But still, they are my primary source of audiobooks. And that's where I discovered Dungeon Crawler Carl. Now, Dungeon Crawler Carl, for those of you that know, I mean, right? And for those of you that don't know, you need to know about this. I called West about a year ago, if not a little bit more, and told him he had to listen to this book. I told him that I'd been

1:32 avoiding it for a long time cuz it looked a little gimmicky. I thought it had a silly name. The cover looked a little childish and everyone told me I had to listen to it, so I didn't want to being the obstinate idiot that I can be sometimes. But since then, I have rapidly consumed Dungeon Crawler Carl, Carl's Doomsday Scenario, The Dungeon Archinists Cookbook, The Gate of the Feral Gods, The Butcher's Masquerade, The Eye of the Bedlin Bride, and then just recently, because it came out this year, a few months ago, this inev inevitable run. And it was glorious. It was beautiful. It has been a symphony of literature ecstasy of DM dungeon crawling bliss like I've never experienced before to the point where I've actually went over to sound booth theater and started working my way through the like $3 per couple of chapters fully narrated and soundsscaped and uh a actor's uh voice actors included version of dungeon crawler Carl.

2:46 It has been an incredible discovery, a amazing ride, something that I've went and spent money on Patreon so I could read the snippets of extra chapters as they've came out. And since then, I've been searching. I've been looking. I've been pining to find more books that fill that RPG, that gamer inside of me, that little niche that I think is slowly, if not rapidly expanding from a subgenre in a subgenre, in a forum on a community online to a massive piece of lit development that we're just starting to witness.

3:32 like in the board game space, how we've seen a transformation, a growth, a boom in our industry. I think we're seeing the same thing here in the ease that it is to create, design, publish, and put out the way that you can easily get books accessible and consumed through things like Audible and other uh sound uhcape devices. I mean, Dungeon Crawler Carl right now is number eight in most listened to audiobooks. I think three or four of the books are in the top 20 for most recent highest purchased books on Audible. And over in uh fiction or or yeah, I think fiction on reddit.com or whatever, it was raised by like 123 slots in the ranking to be at number 18 this year, right behind other titans like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter and uh Eye of the World, whatever it is. the yeah the the Eye of the World series and the Brandon Sanderson's Cosmmer series and all of those incredible book the Stormlight Archives Dungeon Crawler Carl sitting right behind them and I think it's going to be passing them at least for certain fans for certain community members very soon if not already this book has set a standard for me that

5:02 I've now had a really hard time competing with. And so that's the conversation that we're going to have right now. Where do I go from here? First off, if you've not listen to Dungeon Crawler Carl, listen to it because I'm thinking about listening through it again and doing like a reader journey, a narrative guide, a walk through. I I don't know. I maybe we'll do a book club here on Quackaloupe because this thing is so darn good. I want the physical copy of it. If you want a little synopsis, by the way, it's basically like you take a uh gladatorial level system in an RPG game like D&D. You sick everyone into arena. Only a certain number of them can survive. But that arena happens to be Earth and happens to be under the fabric of the surface of Earth because alien planets have collapsed the top of it, slaughtering billions of people in the process. But Carl happens to be one of the people who survives with his lovely cat named Princess who gains sentience and uh she or Donut uh Princess Donut who gains sentience and she's able to actually get RPG- like powers and abilities as well and they have conversations. They go on epic fights and they slaughter horrific creatures and they start more or less holding a middle finger up to the cosmir, to the galaxy, to the aliens that are playing this little game and streaming it live to trillions and trillions and quasillions of other species who enjoy watching as humans and other people throughout history and throughout eras

6:34 have struggled to survive and reclaim the territorial rights of the planet. that is looked at as just a zone for resource harvesting, but actually is a very profitable TV show that Carl is now uh in the center of. It's great. I don't even know if that was a good description of it, but it's you should just listen. Okay, so from here, the reason why I'm filming this now is because I have a big decision to make. I am nearly done with all 12 books in He Who Fights with Monsters. Now, this is not as good as Dungeon Crawler Carl. It is a little bit less bombastic, has a little bit less stakes when you pull the curtain back. Like, it's good.

7:22 It's fun. It's been rewarding. I've enjoyed the journey with Jason Asano. I I thought that the powers and abilities have been very well fleshed out. I would like to play a game in this universe and I'm one book away from being at the very end of this journey. And so now I have to decide where else I'm going to go. There's a few other books. There's Path of Ascension, there's Defiance of the Fall, there's I'm Not the Hero, there's The Primal Hunter. Those are the four series that I'm kind of exploring. And I would love to hear from you all if you've listened to any of these, if I should journey down any of these, if any of these line up with the taste that I've had so far, because I have purchased and tried Mark of the Fool, which I so far have just found a little convoluted, a little complex beyond my interest. I I don't mind complexity. I don't mind the reading of stats and details, but Mark of the Fool so far just hasn't set with me. I'm a few hours in. Like I think we just got through our first cave system.

8:24 I don't know. I'm just not there yet. And I have a book called The Wandering Inn, which I've heard gets really good. It's basically like you're an RPG player and you're controlling the inn where all of the people come through. I think it's a really cool idea, but the application of it, the execution of it in the first book specifically is long and plotting feels very self-centered, like a high schooler wrote it to read to themselves. I I just I haven't enjoyed it at all. I heard it gets grand. I've heard it's expansive. I've heard it's worth getting through, but I don't know that I want to put like 30, 40 hours into an audio book that so far isn't convincing me that I'm even going to like it once we flip the page.

9:11 I've heard they are rewriting the first book of the series, which indicates that there is an issue there that I wish I could just skip over. Maybe I'll check it out again when the new one is released. I also have purchased a book called Flash Forward. I don't even remember what it's about. I've listened to like half of it. I don't even remember if it fits into this lit RPG category to be honest, but it's there. I have it. Maybe it doesn't even. The other books that I own are Discount Dan, which is supposed to be like a ripoff version or a sidestep version of Dungeon Crawler Carl, which I'm excited about cuz more in that type of genre is good for me. We have Quicksilver, which I've just heard good things about. I don't even know much about. I haven't started listening to these yet. We have the mayor of Noobtown, which sounds like a really fun name of a book. All the skills, a deck building RPG, which for me sounds fun. I like deck building quite a bit. I'm interested to see how they apply that to a board game scene.

10:13 Maybe that'll be an interesting video to see if they or into a into a narrative scene. And then I have dominion of uh Dominion of three dominion of it's not dominance of the fall. Dominion of three laces. I I don't know. I don't I can't even read my writing there. So I can't quite tell you what that book is. But I'm nearly finished. Dominion. Let's see here. Dominion of Blades by Matt Deniman. Oh, this is another one from the author who wrote Dungeon Crawler, Carl. Um, I also have by Matt Dineman. I've listened to it over in the uh audiocape. Um, Denimman, what's it called? Kaiju Battlefield Surgeon, which is fun and gross and a lot. It's a lot to listen to. I listened to it in the soundsscape version. I haven't quite finished it yet, but uh yeah, he comes he comes with some history as an author, which is which is fun. Which is fun. You know, never thought I'd enjoy reading about uh uh repetitively getting the the skin uh fleshed off his body during a ritual that has to happen over and over and over again because he's in a simulated world. and uh you just get reborn at the same place that you uh you know died and

11:45 that happens to be a long enough ritual that it reborns you during the beginning of that process. It's a lot. It's a lot. So that's this video. I mean, this is if you're still watching, let me please leave comments down below and let me know what I should be reading next, where I should be going with this genre, with this narrative adventure, cuz really, I just filmed this to talk to you about the fact that Dungeon Crawler Carl is the peak of of this genre. I have enjoyed it so much, and I'm so excited to see how excited everyone's been about it. This last book, The Inevitable Run, I don't want to even talk about because I feel like it's going to ruin things for people that haven't read it yet. But it was mindblowing. I mean, I consumed it nonstop for like a week until I had it finished. And I really just want to go through this series one more time. Would you all be interested in like a lit RPG book club here on the channel? like once a week we dive into whatever book I've been reading recently and and talk about it and dig into some of the cool moments and details and just like nerd out on some story stuff cuz I I like reading a lot and I like this genre a lot.

13:01 At least I like the stuff that I've read in this genre a lot. Some of it has has been hit or miss so far, but I'm nearly done with you fights for with monsters and I need some opinions on what I read next. So, what are you reading? what out there in the genre is worth reading, what is good, what has been rewarding. The stuff that I really like about Dungeon Crawler Carl is I love how fast-paced it is and how hectic it is. I love the snarkiness. Um I I like the the way that Carl starts playing with the Galactic uh powers. I find that to be so satisfying. I really love the talk show, you know, where you step out uh and you see the bigger picture of what's happening as opposed to always being in the midst of the action. And finally, for me, I really love gladatorial systems. I love combat zones. I want to read books about the Hunger Games where we don't care about the politics or the subtrafuge. I was pissed off when book three of the Hunger Games came out. And instead of talking about the Hunger Games, which is why I've signed up to this series, I'll read all 50 stories, they like leave the Hunger Games and go to the capital and start fighting at the capital and doing all that nonsense. I didn't want that. I, as a kid, as a teenager, was just like, "No, I just want a really cool battle where you run up and you get some arrows and you get some bombs and you, you know, figure out through your innovation or you don't figure out through your innovation how to survive. And if you that means you have to murder some other people in the process to do that, then you do. That's

14:32 just that's part of the equation that you got to factor in sometimes. And Dungeon Crawler Carl is just like that as well. Now, maybe there's a little bit more humanity there, maybe there's a little bit less humanity there. I don't know. You be the judge. But those are the things that I've loved in Dungeon Crawler Carl. In he who fights with monsters, the magic system has been really innovative and really fun. I enjoy the layers to it. I like the fact that each of these core abilities that they start with become expressions of their character and of their nature. You see them start to change and adapt based on either who they already were as they just become more or uh those powers themselves start twisting and turning them. I think the world is really expansive. I think it's really neat and I love the interplay between the deities of He who fights with monsters and the humans on the ground and the way that you as a character I guess as a magic user start progressing closer and closer to this spiritual realm, this deification if if you will, as the narrative continues to go through. But that gap is still infinite. That gap is still massive. And yet you have just this taste, this this little bit. I find that journey to be really satisfying and I found it to really be really interesting. The monsters themselves, the battles that have happened, the interplay between the characters, I don't know. It's all felt a little surface level to me. It's the grounding

16:03 stuff. It's the stuff that it's the it's the framework of the system and the world building that I've been very compelled by with He Who Fights with Monsters. So, where do I go? Path of Ascension, Defiance of the Fall, I'm Not the Hero, and the Primal Hunter. Those are the next areas that I'm going to explore. And I believe I just got an alert on my watch. I'm going to check my phone here. Is my son awake? We are shifting. And uh Shar is sleeping cuz she works nights at the labor and delivery hospital. So, I'm going to stop this video here. I'm going to grab the memory card so I can go edit it. And I'm going to go rescue my son from his crib, give him some cuddles, and probably stick him in a backpack and go on a bit of a hike. Go rucking for a little bit.

16:53 Thank you for watching. Thank you for being here. Whatever the case though, whatever you do, remember to do the important thing. Read Dungeon Carl Crawler Carl because we're going to start a book club. I'm telling I'm calling it now and you're gonna want to be caught up because it's it's great. It is great. We'll see you later. Bye.