Read Thread

Dust off a seat and discuss a good book here...you do read, right?

The Divine Dungeon

5 years ago

Anyone heard of these books? I just read the first one (no, really) and it was...different. It's from the point of view of a sentient dungeon. Then it gets weird. It build itself and then interacts with all the explorers who enter it. It actually tries to balance rewards with killing everyone so it can get kills and keep people interested in exploring it. It's a really weird combination of fantasy/sci-fi and some weird kind of gaming world with respawns and city economics. I guess a little like if an online RPG game were populated with real characters.

BerkaZerka

The Divine Dungeon

5 years ago

Nevah hoid oveet.

But sounds interesting enough.

Mizal

The Divine Dungeon

5 years ago

The "weird gaming world with respawns and city economics" sounds a little like a webcomic I used to read called Erfworld. Which was a really cool concept and good for two books until the author's greed and terrible management skills and inability to work with people or edit down his bloated word vomit caught up with him and made the whole thing a joke. He was going entertainingly batshit around the time he locked the community gates against all but the ass kissers with deep pockets. Last I heard he had some brilliant plan to raise a few thousand dollars by selling "limited edition" 3D modeled forum avatars. (One of them was a shovel. Just a shovel. It was a golden shovel though and vaguely related to a character that used to be important to the main plot, back when there was a main plot...)

Ogre11

The Divine Dungeon

5 years ago

This is one written by Dakota Krout. I don't know if that's related to the comic. It's well-written and not just a blurb of a game. The characters develop, including the character of the dungeon, which is just weird, but still fun. It's a series of 5 and I'm about halfway through the second one, so I don't know if it's going to get repetitive. It doesn't seem like it, as there's more than one storyline now, and even an overarching one that's threatening to clash with the main one, I would guess. I'd call it "light" reading, but that's what I like. Certainly a fun escape from reality.

Mizal

The Divine Dungeon

5 years ago

Oh yeah, I wasn't saying it's related, it just sounds similar in concept and I kind of went off on a tangent when thinking about the comic again reignited my fury.

The comic is like a tabletop world with self reinforced rules and economy, and characters that have to follow rules like game units. Most of the better drama was in dealing with how cruel and arbitrary--and exploitable--that could be.

I did like the idea behind the setting and if this one is even remotely similar I may check it out. Something like that with a more competent writer is something I'd be happy to see.