I’ve had Dungeon Crawler Carl on my TBR for a while (picked it up as retail therapy not too long ago, but it’s been on a list for good bit longer), and then there was a spike of reviews on here, so now here’s my take.
I kind of do get the hype; there’s humor but it’s kind of dark by necessity, there’s hope in the midst of tragedy and chaos, and it’s mostly pretty entertaining. The basic story feels kind of like a mish-mash of been there/done that (Earth about to get destroyed due to not knowing about a demolition notice, a deadly reality competition, inter-galactic social media influence, and plenty of D&D references). I like Carl and Donut, both as a team and as themselves, and most of the supporting cast is pretty clearly ally/enemy/mystery, all of which is definitely building towards future things, like what’s up with Agatha, there’s eventually going to be confrontation with Maggie and probably Maestro (definitely not Carl’s Naughty Little Piggy), what’s going to happen with Donut and Carl at the 9th floor, when’s Carl going to meet other key players like Lucia, some hints about Carl’s ex-girlfriend, etc.
I’m not sure I’d call this funny exactly, and you do need some familiarity with reality tropes as well as the general concept of the dungeon crawl game to get a lot of what’s going on. There are still gags for everyone though, especially when it comes to Carl finally realizing what Mongo actually is. I kind of wonder what Donut’s reaction would be if she knew; the snarky AI game narrator is a little entertaining on its own, but even better if you’ve got some of the situational context.
The extra’s that came with my edition are also worth noting since they add more to the world and story without actually continuing it after the first volume concludes. The reality tv element and what happens to NPCs like Rory is an interesting premise, and then there’s the author’s promise that things are going to get darker in subsequent volumes (of which I think there might now be 6 or so). That worries me a little because I kind liked this for the cozy (sort of cozy, it’s violent and tragic but so far you can count on Carl and Donut to live, though maybe not be fully ok), and I have kind of a hard time seeing how you keep the team around and together but make things worse for too long.