this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2026
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Science Fiction

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Lemmy World Rules

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Tenthrow@lemmy.world
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Mini, spoiler free review of Dungeon Crawler Carl, by Matt Dinniman (lemmy.ca)
submitted 5 days ago by AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca to c/sciencefiction@lemmy.world
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Carl is outside in his boxers trying to get his girlfriend's cat out of a tree when everything with a roof on the planet is destroyed and the smaller number of survivors are made to compete in an intergalactic dungeon game similar to D&D. If this sounds kind of dumb, I described it correctly; it's kind of dumb. It’s also fairly entertaining and has a good amount of heart. People who have played any sort of role playing game, like World Of Warcraft, will probably be extra amused.

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[–] Carl@anarchist.nexus 2 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Book 3 can be a bit of a slog if you get wrapped up in trying to decipher the Iron Tangle. The point is that the entire thing runs on vibes, not hard rules. The point is to confuse the reader right alongside the crawlers. But lots of readers ended up struggling as a result, because they wanted to figure out the specific rules of the floor. Anyone who claims to have figured out how it works has either missed a rule or made up some of their own.

Books 4 and 5 are where the series truly hits its stride. I’d say 7 is probably my favorite. 8 was probably the worst so far, mostly because it spends a lot of time setting up potential plot hooks for later. But that also leaves lots of potential room for growth with later books.

[–] AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca 1 points 12 hours ago

Good to hear the series stays worthwhile.