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目を覚ますと、私は見知らぬ洋館にいた。
メイド服を着せられて、豪華なベッドに寝かされていた。
寝室を出て、廊下を歩いた。
食堂の扉を開けると、そこには五人の人間がいた。
みな一様に、私と同じくメイド服を着せられていて、少女だった。
〈ゲーム〉の始まりだった。
吹き矢、丸鋸、密室に手錠、そして凶器の数々。人間をあの世にいざなうもので満ち満ちている、そこは〈ゴーストハウス〉。
館に仕掛けられたトラップのすべてをくぐり抜けて脱出するしか、私たちの生き残る道はなかった。絶望的な現実に、少女たちは顔色を悪くする――
――ただ一人、私だけを除いて。
なぜかって？ そりゃあ――私はこれが初めてじゃないから。
プレイヤーネーム、幽鬼【ユウキ】。十七歳。
自分で言うのもなんだけど、殺人ゲームのプロフェッショナル。メイド服を着て死の館から脱出を図ったり、バニーガール姿でほかのプレイヤーと殺し合ったり、そんなことをして得た賞金で生活している人間。
どうかしてるとお思いですか？
私もそう思います。
だけど、そういう人間がこの世にはいるんですよ。
おととい励まし合った仲間が、今日は敵になる。
油断すれば後ろから刺され、万全を尽くしたとしても命を落とすことがある――
そんな、死亡遊戯で飯を食う、少女が。
メイド服を着せられて、豪華なベッドに寝かされていた。
寝室を出て、廊下を歩いた。
食堂の扉を開けると、そこには五人の人間がいた。
みな一様に、私と同じくメイド服を着せられていて、少女だった。
〈ゲーム〉の始まりだった。
吹き矢、丸鋸、密室に手錠、そして凶器の数々。人間をあの世にいざなうもので満ち満ちている、そこは〈ゴーストハウス〉。
館に仕掛けられたトラップのすべてをくぐり抜けて脱出するしか、私たちの生き残る道はなかった。絶望的な現実に、少女たちは顔色を悪くする――
――ただ一人、私だけを除いて。
なぜかって？ そりゃあ――私はこれが初めてじゃないから。
プレイヤーネーム、幽鬼【ユウキ】。十七歳。
自分で言うのもなんだけど、殺人ゲームのプロフェッショナル。メイド服を着て死の館から脱出を図ったり、バニーガール姿でほかのプレイヤーと殺し合ったり、そんなことをして得た賞金で生活している人間。
どうかしてるとお思いですか？
私もそう思います。
だけど、そういう人間がこの世にはいるんですよ。
おととい励まし合った仲間が、今日は敵になる。
油断すれば後ろから刺され、万全を尽くしたとしても命を落とすことがある――
そんな、死亡遊戯で飯を食う、少女が。
- GenresLight Novel
239 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 25, 2022
11 people are currently reading
56 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 23, 2024
The challenge with books in which the author holds a deliberately hostile view of character development is how blatantly obvious and darkly prismatic the consequences typically are: unclear or nonexistent character goals; nebulous and vain archetypes; and alas, if the author doesn't really care about their characters, then why should readers?
PLAYING DEATH GAMES TO PUT FOOD ON THE TABLE v1 is a curious but unsatisfying read in much the same way one might shrug one's shoulders at a large-scale fantasy series in which popular characters are regularly written out of the story, or in much the same way one might roll one's eyes at a narrative point of view that leans too heavily into the male gaze. PLAYING DEATH GAMES v1 is dull, overwritten, and melodramatic.
The book's appeal is somewhat laughable on its face: a "horror fiction" novel with zero blood, gore, or appropriate violence; a muddled, low sci-fi exploit with comically inexplicable science; a tale of greed and perversion without much conversation of money and zero nudity. What readers who might enjoy this novel will find most pleasing is how the author strips away anything legitimately offensive and leaves it to the reader to conjure the details. Whether such an approach constitutes good storytelling is debatable.
Yuki is a teenager who makes a living surviving death games: exacerbated escape-room-styled adventures in which young women are dressed up in ludicrous costumes and forced to navigate a maze of traps, tricks, and snares meant to kill the competitors. Some games feature only a handful of contestants; some games feature hundreds. Some games are short, with only a few, seriously deadly puzzles to solve; some games are extended, spanning days or weeks, and are more endurance- or survival-based. All in all, Yuki is somewhat of an expert at these death games. She is, by all accounts, lazy and unsympathetic. Perhaps getting one's kicks out of enduring circumstances in which one is repeatedly maimed is appropriate for a weirdo like her.
PLAYING DEATH GAMES v1 is a solid example of explanatory narrative fiction. In this context, the preference for third-person omniscient yields to nothing and no one, often to the detriment of not giving readers room to breathe and frame the story's events at their own pace. The good news is that readers will never lack for knowledge. The bad news is that the narrator painstakingly details every side character, their personality, their quirks, their aimless desires, their backstories, and so forth. At best, these details serve as red herrings to throw one off the scent of which characters will or won't survive the death game. At worst, it's clutter. Why spend half a page describing an otherwise unrecognizable side character? Why waste six pages on the backstory of a character whose name readers can't place? More isn't always better.
The cleverer angle might posit that convincing readers to invest their energy in characters who will inevitably die is a mark of unique and preferential storytelling. But what's the point of having characters who don't possess actionable aims? Where is the value in drafting character conflicts that are easily rationalized? Sometimes, the author has a tell: When a character other than the protagonist receives a disproportionate amount of page time, they're probably going to die.
Yuki, the main character, is rather worthless. This book emerges from the void of light novels that wield listless teenagers who live alone, don't go to school, have no job, and yet possess an otherworldly motivation to engage one simple task (which the novel documents). Yuki, doubtlessly, is a high-functioning psychopath, but her recklessness is quickly normalized because, apparently, the teenager simply isn't good at anything else.
The girl's quickness and assertiveness ensures she survives the myriad puzzles in each game, and her sociability ensures she makes friends when said friendships can improve her rate of survival. But beyond the setting of kill-or-be-killed; Yuki is worthless, both in literal and figurative, narrative terms. The narrator helps readers see what Yuki sees when a newbie is "responsible to a fault" or behaves in a way "suggesting a lack of mental fortitude." But to one's dismay, Yuki never actually does anything with this critical information.
PLAYING DEATH GAMES v1 reads like the type of novel that succeeds because it was deliberately written around its most objectionable content. Such a supposition may not be true, and co-authored afterwards indicate as much. But the book doesn't have much body horror, violence, or blood, despite the promise of death-game dismemberment. For example, characters don't bleed because they've been somehow injected with a serum that manifests as cute, fluffy cotton when they're cut open. And characters who survive a death game, but have lost a body part or an organ can simply go to a specialized hospital and have their limbs sewn back together. Easy as that. Some horror book. If the consequences of violence are null, then what's the point?
And so, beset with childish flights of aggression, over-engineered conflict, and puzzle games whose savagery is wildly inconsistent, PLAYING DEATH GAMES v1 probably isn't the type of novel any strident student of literature would enjoy. A great book for a somnolent preteen, sure. A comfy read for an antisocial misanthrope, perhaps. But the book's unnecessarily awkward chapter structure, lack of commanding characters, and overbearing narrative style, combined, are exhausting.
PLAYING DEATH GAMES TO PUT FOOD ON THE TABLE v1 is a curious but unsatisfying read in much the same way one might shrug one's shoulders at a large-scale fantasy series in which popular characters are regularly written out of the story, or in much the same way one might roll one's eyes at a narrative point of view that leans too heavily into the male gaze. PLAYING DEATH GAMES v1 is dull, overwritten, and melodramatic.
The book's appeal is somewhat laughable on its face: a "horror fiction" novel with zero blood, gore, or appropriate violence; a muddled, low sci-fi exploit with comically inexplicable science; a tale of greed and perversion without much conversation of money and zero nudity. What readers who might enjoy this novel will find most pleasing is how the author strips away anything legitimately offensive and leaves it to the reader to conjure the details. Whether such an approach constitutes good storytelling is debatable.
Yuki is a teenager who makes a living surviving death games: exacerbated escape-room-styled adventures in which young women are dressed up in ludicrous costumes and forced to navigate a maze of traps, tricks, and snares meant to kill the competitors. Some games feature only a handful of contestants; some games feature hundreds. Some games are short, with only a few, seriously deadly puzzles to solve; some games are extended, spanning days or weeks, and are more endurance- or survival-based. All in all, Yuki is somewhat of an expert at these death games. She is, by all accounts, lazy and unsympathetic. Perhaps getting one's kicks out of enduring circumstances in which one is repeatedly maimed is appropriate for a weirdo like her.
PLAYING DEATH GAMES v1 is a solid example of explanatory narrative fiction. In this context, the preference for third-person omniscient yields to nothing and no one, often to the detriment of not giving readers room to breathe and frame the story's events at their own pace. The good news is that readers will never lack for knowledge. The bad news is that the narrator painstakingly details every side character, their personality, their quirks, their aimless desires, their backstories, and so forth. At best, these details serve as red herrings to throw one off the scent of which characters will or won't survive the death game. At worst, it's clutter. Why spend half a page describing an otherwise unrecognizable side character? Why waste six pages on the backstory of a character whose name readers can't place? More isn't always better.
The cleverer angle might posit that convincing readers to invest their energy in characters who will inevitably die is a mark of unique and preferential storytelling. But what's the point of having characters who don't possess actionable aims? Where is the value in drafting character conflicts that are easily rationalized? Sometimes, the author has a tell: When a character other than the protagonist receives a disproportionate amount of page time, they're probably going to die.
Yuki, the main character, is rather worthless. This book emerges from the void of light novels that wield listless teenagers who live alone, don't go to school, have no job, and yet possess an otherworldly motivation to engage one simple task (which the novel documents). Yuki, doubtlessly, is a high-functioning psychopath, but her recklessness is quickly normalized because, apparently, the teenager simply isn't good at anything else.
The girl's quickness and assertiveness ensures she survives the myriad puzzles in each game, and her sociability ensures she makes friends when said friendships can improve her rate of survival. But beyond the setting of kill-or-be-killed; Yuki is worthless, both in literal and figurative, narrative terms. The narrator helps readers see what Yuki sees when a newbie is "responsible to a fault" or behaves in a way "suggesting a lack of mental fortitude." But to one's dismay, Yuki never actually does anything with this critical information.
PLAYING DEATH GAMES v1 reads like the type of novel that succeeds because it was deliberately written around its most objectionable content. Such a supposition may not be true, and co-authored afterwards indicate as much. But the book doesn't have much body horror, violence, or blood, despite the promise of death-game dismemberment. For example, characters don't bleed because they've been somehow injected with a serum that manifests as cute, fluffy cotton when they're cut open. And characters who survive a death game, but have lost a body part or an organ can simply go to a specialized hospital and have their limbs sewn back together. Easy as that. Some horror book. If the consequences of violence are null, then what's the point?
And so, beset with childish flights of aggression, over-engineered conflict, and puzzle games whose savagery is wildly inconsistent, PLAYING DEATH GAMES v1 probably isn't the type of novel any strident student of literature would enjoy. A great book for a somnolent preteen, sure. A comfy read for an antisocial misanthrope, perhaps. But the book's unnecessarily awkward chapter structure, lack of commanding characters, and overbearing narrative style, combined, are exhausting.
December 16, 2025
An easy to read, genuinely enjoyable entry into the death game genre. Could've been a lot more descriptive of gore but didn't suffer for it.
June 26, 2024
Not what I expected, but…
With a title like “Playing Death Games to Put Food on the Table”, I don’t entirely know why I was kind of thinking it was going to be cozy in any way, but I was. And it very much wasn’t.
That said, despite how dark and unsettling it ended up being, the writing was good and I had to keep reading it.
Would I buy it now, knowing what it ended up being? I’m not sure. Would I buy the second volume, knowing that the two main characters will likely go at it harder and more viciously to make it through the games? Again, I’m… not sure. I do want to know if Yuki can surpass her mentor and make it through 100 games. That said, I think part of why I made it through was the fact that although the death games are televised, there was an extremely minimal touch on this, and I think that the next volume(s) are going to reference it more. It’s easier to think of it as a video-game style book when all the wounds have the blood turn to fluff (it does), the injuries are completely fixed after the games (they are) and you don’t see the bookers and the screaming crowds behind the scenes…
As I said, I thought it was well-written, but it’s a hard book to read and definitely NOT for everyone.
With a title like “Playing Death Games to Put Food on the Table”, I don’t entirely know why I was kind of thinking it was going to be cozy in any way, but I was. And it very much wasn’t.
That said, despite how dark and unsettling it ended up being, the writing was good and I had to keep reading it.
Would I buy it now, knowing what it ended up being? I’m not sure. Would I buy the second volume, knowing that the two main characters will likely go at it harder and more viciously to make it through the games? Again, I’m… not sure. I do want to know if Yuki can surpass her mentor and make it through 100 games. That said, I think part of why I made it through was the fact that although the death games are televised, there was an extremely minimal touch on this, and I think that the next volume(s) are going to reference it more. It’s easier to think of it as a video-game style book when all the wounds have the blood turn to fluff (it does), the injuries are completely fixed after the games (they are) and you don’t see the bookers and the screaming crowds behind the scenes…
As I said, I thought it was well-written, but it’s a hard book to read and definitely NOT for everyone.
December 19, 2025
Enjoyed quite a lot. Really wished the second game was more a different characters perspectives but we got what we got. I love the second ame setting but preferred how the first game was done.
Let's see where it goes in the second book.
Let's see where it goes in the second book.
November 24, 2025
you read a death game story to see pieces in motion. the breakneck pacing of the prose and easy to understand character types make it appealing. theres a certain kind of inhumanity ascribed to all the characters via the preservation treatment that makes it seem like the author is keenly aware of this.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews