A decent story ruined by terrible production

I'm a bit of a Harmon Cooper fan as well that of Soundbooth Theater, but man did they $&@* this one up. It's pokemon go litrpg. Ok, I like Pokemon. I can deal with that. It was the persistent acoustic guitar, finger-snapping, and wordless la da da singing in the background that ruined it to the point of being unlistenable. I don't know if it was through the entire book, but after 15-20 straight minutes I was ready to jam a pencil in my ear up to the eraser. Seriously, Soundbooth, did you ask yourselves the simple question of how many listeners would you lose if you DID NOT include the god-awful background music and how many if you DID? The former is 0 the latter is probably more than just me. I probably would have rated the story much higher if I could have stomached more than 30 minutes of it.

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Weird but entertaining

Got this because it was free, not knowing what to expect. Not an author I’d heard of and not my usual genre, but I have to say I really liked it.
Not sure about the singing but the overall performance was good and the storyline was entertaining. I’m going to try his other free book so who knows? May even become a fan..

Dropped the ball by the end but a fun-ish journey

I generally enjoyed this as my introduction into litrpg, the characters were fun, the game mechanics were simple enough that I think my mother could get the gist of it. I found it generally an OK piece, but I did have a few gripes.
I did find many of the songs- especially sang by the male voice actor just too cringe to listen to, which I think may have been on purpose. As well as that the writer just decided to get rid of any tension that had been through the whole story before the third act even started.
Would he choose the code or Everlife? The writer just decided to deus ex machina that for the main character.
Everyone but the main character were fairly likable, the guy could not take a joke or flirt to save his life, that and his dry lifeless personality with the Pokémon Go trainer type gameplay meant he felt pretty none existent and useless, I was thankful by the end when a decent character decided to barge in and actually do something.
Finally, don’t expect the writing to get you hot and steamy at all, I don’t read erotic stuff but even I could tell this was sub-par.

I feel like I have been a bit tough on this one, I think mainly because of the wasted potential by the end. I’ll say if you’re reading it as part of your free membership catalogue, it goes by fast so if you think you’ll be interested despite the floors I found above, go for it. I found the small nudges to various mythologies interesting and fun to guess about, and despite the main character the rest of the cast were fun to be around.

We need sequels

Well worth giving a try even if it's not your Genre. Sequels needed please!

really clever

throughly enjoyed this book.characters were great,the story is very game-ee,street fighter,actors really brought it to life.really recommended.

Fabulous production but a few common issues.

As far as Gamelits go, this is a example of how to make things engaging and entertaining while not bogging it down with Stats, rules and systems.

Very light on the technicalities yet thoroughly enjoyable, especially with the Jeff and Annie's fantastic production.

My only complaint, and one that cost the story a point, is the inclusion of sexualisation and porn. The addition of scenes describing breasts, bare flesh, dry humping and grinding was wholly unneccesary and added nothing at all to the sort and simply ensured that my wife and daughter (who love Gamelit and Pokémon) won't be partaking in this. A.J. Cerna & Derek Alan Siddoway's Djinn Tamer series show that this genre needs no such 'action' to make the story interesting and maintains the action.

In all though, an absolutely brilliant production of a good story and I will be interested to read the next one.

Fantastic!

I have to admit that I am a fan of Harmon Coopers books and this one is as entertaining as the others I've read. Great production and an original, cheeky, funny story.

Just great fun

All round brilliance. as usual a fantasic story by Harmon and a great production by Soundbooth. Both Harmon and Jeff were totally upstaged by Annie's amazing performance.

One word...AMAZING!

From start to finish, I was hooked!

I loved the story but for me it was all about the passion from Jeff and Annie - you could instantly tell that Jeff and Annie put their hearts and souls into this production.

I hope that they both do the second book (hell, the complete series) and it has the same level of passion as the first.

If Jeff and Annie read this - Keep up the fantastic work! You guys are truly awesome!

World Quality Production

I liked the book although some of the moments didn't gel very well but it was 5 stars fun.
This SBT production showcases what I have come to expect from their quality narrators, but i have to say I was surprised as this raises it up a notch again mostly as judicious use of sound effects gives an extra oomph to moments of tension, hilarity and realism.
In the books the songs ( not being musically minded myself) didn't bother me too much but hearing theme music which was initially distracting soon becomes a good counterpoint to the main action as does the songs as the extra depth works well.
Having just listened to an Audio BBC radio drama which I was a bit dissatisfied with as their mix of special effects/narration wasn't as on point as I would have liked, nor their sound level.
But this easily matched this so the time taken to produce this was well spent and appreciated
The fans who loved the books will appreciate the extra work in this and my only negative is I'm a bit worried with such a long time between books and audio if the pace will maintain at this rate as I know book 2 was a lot more intriguing and I look forward to this showcasing on audio and I'm hoping not going to be such a wait.