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Dungeon Core for Hire
We’ve all gotta work, right? But maybe you’re bored of your job. Maybe you want something different. Something exciting. Something…unusual.
Well, I have an offer that you’re gonna want to hear.
Come closer, friend. Listen…
…how would you like a job as a dungeon core?
Sounds weird, but trust me - you’ll love it. You’ll get to create all kinds of treacherous traps, malevolent monsters, and miles upon miles of dungeon delights.
Rick Andrews is just like you. He needs extra cash, so he looks for evening work that fits around his day job. Luckily, the developers of Eons of Darkness are hiring.
Sales and player numbers are dropping. As part of a bunch of changes to the game, the devs have made a big decision. From now on, dungeons will be human controlled. It’s the birth of a new age. The age of…dungeon cores.
Rick can’t believe his luck when he gets a job as a dungeon core. Starting with nothing but some mana and an underground chamber near a newbie village, his job is to use all his skill and his wiles to outwit human adventurers.
Together with two dungeon core friends, he’s going to build a lair that will become the most feared place in the game. So why not grab a beer, a trap, and a monster encyclopaedia, and join him in his dungeon?
Well, I have an offer that you’re gonna want to hear.
Come closer, friend. Listen…
…how would you like a job as a dungeon core?
Sounds weird, but trust me - you’ll love it. You’ll get to create all kinds of treacherous traps, malevolent monsters, and miles upon miles of dungeon delights.
Rick Andrews is just like you. He needs extra cash, so he looks for evening work that fits around his day job. Luckily, the developers of Eons of Darkness are hiring.
Sales and player numbers are dropping. As part of a bunch of changes to the game, the devs have made a big decision. From now on, dungeons will be human controlled. It’s the birth of a new age. The age of…dungeon cores.
Rick can’t believe his luck when he gets a job as a dungeon core. Starting with nothing but some mana and an underground chamber near a newbie village, his job is to use all his skill and his wiles to outwit human adventurers.
Together with two dungeon core friends, he’s going to build a lair that will become the most feared place in the game. So why not grab a beer, a trap, and a monster encyclopaedia, and join him in his dungeon?
234 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 19, 2022
60 people are currently reading
10 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
September 21, 2022
A fun reversal of adventurers defeating dungeons to rank up. In this book, the dungeon has to rank up. Enjoyed this a lot.
October 26, 2023
Usually Dungeons are managed by the game company, either with code written by programmers or sometime in the future by Artificial Intelligence (to make it a different experience/multi-instance dungeons). To hire "real-people", that have no real experience with game lore, strategy or system's management (minimum wage workers) I think is a #TotalFail.
Then to treat these "employee-Dungeon-managers" as players and to limit their resources is just forcing that game and those people to #EternallyFail. The thing is in fantasy and game lore "real dungeon cores" feed off of the mana created by the living beings in their "dungeons". But "game employees" don't really need mana to breathe, grow or do their jobs properly. The limits that "game employees" should have should be related to how they treat players and how much server resources they should use, what % of hit or miss they should be reaching, etc.
What I am saying is that the focus and scope of this book, is wrong because it is treating an "employee" like a "player" and an "employee" like a "inanimate dungeon core" (Non-player-character, NPC). Even though your employees are "working in a game", it is not supposed to be "game-like-fun-to-play", it's a job with different objectives and perspectives.
I think the chat between the different employees is dynamic, but also skewed because, what the "employees" should be researching and improving their knowledge and experience about is the game dynamics, rankings, professions, weapons, etc. etc. about the game and every day learning about how to improve the efficiency of their roles in their "dungeon management"...
If a game company found it interesting to have "real people" managing dungeons, then maybe they should have offered "Dungeon Master" role to some of its players and then made it like this author had it (mana management, player limitations and rewards). Otherwise, I do not see the "real world benefit" of having "low-wage employees", with no real knowledge or experience, invent the "dungeon" and make it "entertaining" for the gamers that visit it. There is really no way that this system would work in real life.
This book does not have any maps, no inside illustrations, no real "world building" of the game world or of the real world (geopolitical, territorial, economic, social, religious, etc. systems in place and how they relate to the story), very little to no character development. The book is really short at 231 pages and is not that interesting to readers that have already read about Dungeons, Dungeon core books.
Then to treat these "employee-Dungeon-managers" as players and to limit their resources is just forcing that game and those people to #EternallyFail. The thing is in fantasy and game lore "real dungeon cores" feed off of the mana created by the living beings in their "dungeons". But "game employees" don't really need mana to breathe, grow or do their jobs properly. The limits that "game employees" should have should be related to how they treat players and how much server resources they should use, what % of hit or miss they should be reaching, etc.
What I am saying is that the focus and scope of this book, is wrong because it is treating an "employee" like a "player" and an "employee" like a "inanimate dungeon core" (Non-player-character, NPC). Even though your employees are "working in a game", it is not supposed to be "game-like-fun-to-play", it's a job with different objectives and perspectives.
I think the chat between the different employees is dynamic, but also skewed because, what the "employees" should be researching and improving their knowledge and experience about is the game dynamics, rankings, professions, weapons, etc. etc. about the game and every day learning about how to improve the efficiency of their roles in their "dungeon management"...
If a game company found it interesting to have "real people" managing dungeons, then maybe they should have offered "Dungeon Master" role to some of its players and then made it like this author had it (mana management, player limitations and rewards). Otherwise, I do not see the "real world benefit" of having "low-wage employees", with no real knowledge or experience, invent the "dungeon" and make it "entertaining" for the gamers that visit it. There is really no way that this system would work in real life.
This book does not have any maps, no inside illustrations, no real "world building" of the game world or of the real world (geopolitical, territorial, economic, social, religious, etc. systems in place and how they relate to the story), very little to no character development. The book is really short at 231 pages and is not that interesting to readers that have already read about Dungeons, Dungeon core books.
March 23, 2022
ummmmm
Ok so fun story. Creative use of the dungeon core genre. And everything was spelt correctly. I personally can overlook the homonyms and missed edits, but there was one thing that broke my reading stride: continuity errors. The first one I came across (and there may have been only one: FYI - MC retrieved a rat mob he had gotten from a loot chest that had not been in the chest five chapters earlier) brought my reading to a halt as I scrolled back through to double check. From then on if I even suspected, I rolled my eyes and kept going (like with the editing error or homonyms).
Otherwise, I found the minutia oriented description of even tunnels annoying and mildly confusing with shorthand (personal issue) but middle to end of story growth becomes implied and we only really know the results at the climax Deus Ex Machina style. I felt no real connection to the characters, like their issues were just flavor text that could have been left unread.
As an aside, the story was made so that it was the goal of dungeons to kill everyone to the point that “fair play” was even ruled out by a character.
In all it was an interesting read, holding a lot of promise, wasn’t hard to read, but did not hook me to the world. If I hear it’s been revised and edited I might give it another go. Please be kind, go in forewarned, and enjoy.
Ok so fun story. Creative use of the dungeon core genre. And everything was spelt correctly. I personally can overlook the homonyms and missed edits, but there was one thing that broke my reading stride: continuity errors. The first one I came across (and there may have been only one: FYI - MC retrieved a rat mob he had gotten from a loot chest that had not been in the chest five chapters earlier) brought my reading to a halt as I scrolled back through to double check. From then on if I even suspected, I rolled my eyes and kept going (like with the editing error or homonyms).
Otherwise, I found the minutia oriented description of even tunnels annoying and mildly confusing with shorthand (personal issue) but middle to end of story growth becomes implied and we only really know the results at the climax Deus Ex Machina style. I felt no real connection to the characters, like their issues were just flavor text that could have been left unread.
As an aside, the story was made so that it was the goal of dungeons to kill everyone to the point that “fair play” was even ruled out by a character.
In all it was an interesting read, holding a lot of promise, wasn’t hard to read, but did not hook me to the world. If I hear it’s been revised and edited I might give it another go. Please be kind, go in forewarned, and enjoy.
February 28, 2022
Book one
Mistakes: I found more than a couple in this novella. Sorry but my standards for being called a book is two hundred and fifty pages. This came up short at two hundred and thirty four pages.
All nine mistakes that I found are listed on Goodreads.
Plot: A failing game hires players to design and run dungeons in the hopes of keeping the game alive.
This was a lot of fun to read. I just wish that it was longer.
Characters: Personally I don't think that the characters really matter as much as the building and running of the dungeon. The dungeon is the MC. Just my opinion.
7/10 Better editing is needed and it needs to be longer, but overall it's a fun read.
Mistakes: I found more than a couple in this novella. Sorry but my standards for being called a book is two hundred and fifty pages. This came up short at two hundred and thirty four pages.
All nine mistakes that I found are listed on Goodreads.
Plot: A failing game hires players to design and run dungeons in the hopes of keeping the game alive.
This was a lot of fun to read. I just wish that it was longer.
Characters: Personally I don't think that the characters really matter as much as the building and running of the dungeon. The dungeon is the MC. Just my opinion.
7/10 Better editing is needed and it needs to be longer, but overall it's a fun read.
April 14, 2022
Good read
This was a decent take on cores, it had some unique elements that help. The story is kinda bland but game aspects and some of the interactions are really well done.
The characters seem generic but do have conversations that would happen in a game. I feel like they were not as fleshed out as they could be. The story was bland but good with some new things. This book is absolutely worth checking out.
This was a decent take on cores, it had some unique elements that help. The story is kinda bland but game aspects and some of the interactions are really well done.
The characters seem generic but do have conversations that would happen in a game. I feel like they were not as fleshed out as they could be. The story was bland but good with some new things. This book is absolutely worth checking out.
February 22, 2022
Slow start but enjoyable finish
I was wondering about reading this book. Slow start, but gradually sucked me in and kept me guessing. Enjoyed reading and actually stayed up late finishing it. Have to say the story line kept me hooked and enjoyed the character building. Would recommend highly.
I was wondering about reading this book. Slow start, but gradually sucked me in and kept me guessing. Enjoyed reading and actually stayed up late finishing it. Have to say the story line kept me hooked and enjoyed the character building. Would recommend highly.
February 24, 2022
Good !
It was a good books with a completely new way of gaming honestly gonna have to check if theres a game out there that permit u to be a dungeon core its interesting. It would be great if theres a follow up but the story seems a bit wrapped up.
Good job
It was a good books with a completely new way of gaming honestly gonna have to check if theres a game out there that permit u to be a dungeon core its interesting. It would be great if theres a follow up but the story seems a bit wrapped up.
Good job
February 26, 2022
decent
An interesting, if limited, concept. I could see a game working quite well in that mode.
Clean prose. YA appropriate, if a little coarse at times.
Not sure it was enough fun to want to read the next book. But it was an amusing read.
An interesting, if limited, concept. I could see a game working quite well in that mode.
Clean prose. YA appropriate, if a little coarse at times.
Not sure it was enough fun to want to read the next book. But it was an amusing read.
June 5, 2022
Zzzzzz
I nodded off a few times trying to read it... It was just boring. MC seemed like the type of guy that gets his news from Facebook, never left his home state, and thinks sushi is exotic. You know the type... Boring and basic
I nodded off a few times trying to read it... It was just boring. MC seemed like the type of guy that gets his news from Facebook, never left his home state, and thinks sushi is exotic. You know the type... Boring and basic
April 20, 2022
Team Lit RPG
Great new book, love the new team chat and mechanics. Waiting on next one! Good series to start. Worthy read
Great new book, love the new team chat and mechanics. Waiting on next one! Good series to start. Worthy read
February 18, 2023
starts off slow…
But gradually ramps up the pace.
All in all, it’s a pretty good read so is worth the cost of buying.
But gradually ramps up the pace.
All in all, it’s a pretty good read so is worth the cost of buying.
June 8, 2023
Great book
Yes this was definitely a good read. Not a lot of action but it was there and more subtle. I would love to play a class like this for sure.
Yes this was definitely a good read. Not a lot of action but it was there and more subtle. I would love to play a class like this for sure.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews