The Next Generation of Choose Your Own Adventure
The Dungeon Crawler Carl series is leading fiction’s new innovation: novels that feel like video games.
At this year's Dragon Con, a pop-culture convention in Atlanta, attendees were dressed in cosplay inspired by Dungeon Crawler Carl, a blockbuster series by Matt Dinniman. The books, read as if the dystopian world of The Hunger Games had been adapted for the Twitch era, have sold 17 million copies and have a TV show in the works.
Dinniman, a litRPG author, explains that the story features a hero who traverses a strange realm, accumulating experience measured in points, adding assets to his inventory, and selecting new powers from a menu.
The novel's clunky character development has not deterred readers, who find themselves "hate-reading" it before "love-reading" it. Despite initial skepticism, the series has found a large, growing audience. The cosplay at the convention reflects the widespread appeal of the series, as many attendees felt an intense sense of escapism from the stresses of their daily lives.
The success of Dungeon Crawler Carl showcases the shift in the books business due to self-published authors and the mainstreaming of video game culture. Video game terminology has become commonplace, even in everyday conversation. This new genre of storytelling suggests that readers' preferences for satisfying narratives have changed, influenced by the habits of mind associated with gaming.
Written by urgent.news from The Atlantic's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
