BuyMort: Rise of the Windowpuncher - How I Became the Accidental Warlord of Arizona. Apocalyptic GameLit

Strong points:

* Can be fun, and funny

* Random, pretty creative, unique System

* Traces of "Kingdom building" (politics with surrounding areas, recruiting new members, the economy and actual base-building)

Weak points:

* Lots of talking/writing about totally irrelevant stuff

* Kinda weird MC

* Repetitive, and a bit hard to follow

Personally I started losing interest quickly. The novelty of "the annoying shop" gimmick wears off rapidly. The story isn't bad at all, and can be very fun, but ultimately it's not for me. The "quality of writing" is ok, and there are 1-2 memorable characters I like. But it's also very all-over-the-place. 

If I had to sum it up, it reminds me a lot of "Dungeon Crawler Carl", the alien chaos gives similiar vibes. (Which will be awesome for people who liked that story. But not for me)

Style score: 5/5
First person, past tense. This is this webnovel's strength, the narration is really well-infused with the MC's personality, quips and humour. It feels unique, distinctive, and fresh.

Story score: 4/5
While the world and the system are awesome, the actual plot starts feeling repetitive, and too chaotic for my tastes. Like random things are happening all the time, while in some other chapters basically nothing happens. It's a bit hard to follow, and doesn't make perfect sense, the plot could be a lot "tighter".

Grammar score: 4.5/5
It's pretty good, but there are mistakes. The prose isn't of the highest quality, but it's definitely readable, and not bad at all. Better than many other stories on Royalroad, but worse than some. Every now and then I come across a sentence that's just weird.

Character score: 3.5/5
This is the weakest part of this webfiction, I think. The characterization is really shallow, especially for important characters like Mr. Sada, we don't know almost anything about them, and they come across as one-dimensional. Even the MC, though he starts strong, starts to lose the feeling of being an actual person as the story progresses. The cast grows really quick, but most of them only get really tiny amounts of focus, and they didn't make me fall in love with them. They're meh. Okay, but nothing special. And I started disliking the MC, as the story went on.

Very refreshing new idea, the shopocalypse. The main character is also pretty okay, even though he's very passive and he's loyal to jerks. Nice side characters.

But I just can't cope with the romantic subplot. Especially if the MC has 15 minutes to avoid catastrophe, and he spends at least half of that being shy, blushing, turning around modestly, excusing himself and so on... I kept on reading, ignoring that, but it keeps going. This seems to become a cringey, funsy high school romance that happens to have a backdrop of abysmal apocalypse. Sorry, but that's not exactly what was advertised :)

Honestly the writng is good, the grammar is good. But I am having a hard time getting into the story. I think it's the way the the author writes stuff like, "didn't realize i did x and it was x. I would find out later." Reminds me of those bad translated novels to much. This isn't for me, but maybe it's for you.

When BuyMort tried to sell this novel to me, and promised me it would help me "survive" in this new reality where you can not exist without a chirpy voice in your head, trying to sell you the "Best articles of the BuyMort family".

As it turns out, this was totally worth it! The novel is amazing with a unique take on a system novel. (EA approved)

At BuyMort, we understand that you had dreams, ambitions, or even a life.
But as per policy, these things are to be discarded for profit and more profit!

Welcome to the family, welcome to BuyMort.

Some may have issues with the MCs personality. He is quiet passive and just goes with the flow. He doesn't have much agency, nor has he really established himself as worthy of being a main character. However, I can see that the story will progress towards him gaining more agency and taking control of his life, so I'm not too bothered by that.

The thing that feels lacking is the potential for the BuyMort system to provide interesting story & character progression. Usually for stories where a system of some kind appears in the world there is a clear feeling for how character's abilities can progress and how the different options allow for interesting and unique ways to individualise. Royal Road web novels like 'The Scourged Earth', 'Change: New World', and 'The Primal Hunter' are decent examples of this. But this is not the case with BuyMort.

BuyMort is just a humorous, wacky, random, infuriating, and oppressive system. And the story reflects that with crazy and silly scenarios occurring. The skills involved seem to just be how to search for stuff and choosing what to buy. When reading the stories mentioned above, I would often fantasize what I would do if I was in the story, what progression path would I take. That doesn't happen with this BuyMort story. So far, the BuyMort system seems boring and lacking interesting option. Though I guess the MC hasn't really looked through the system to actually see if there is anything interesting, he only uses it when he needs it. Probably because the system is portrayed as annoying and unbearable to use. This also kills a lot of my interest. I began to lose interest at around chapters 11-14, and after 20 chapters my interest in the potential for this story was gone.

If you just want to read a wacky silly near-slice-of-life story, then you might like this. Otherwise, if you're more interested in how someone would rise to become a warlord after the introduction of a system then this story isn't really for you.

Keeps stuttering in time. Backstepping in the middle of a sequence to tell you backstory that doesn't matter or could be told a couple of paragraphs later with less damage to story flow. 

So much vomit 🤮 and intoxication combined with a dead-souled anarchy in the first 5 entries.  I understand it's aiming for comedy, but just like the MC's time at the gun range-- it's missed for me.

I'm currently up to chapter 8 on Patreon and loving the story so far. It reminds me a lot of Absolute Shopping Addict or Keyboard Immortal, if you know them, but is entirely focused so far on the shopping.

The world is unique, fresh, and completely alien, and the characters are immediately endearing. The MC is clearly flawed but I also found myself immediately sympathetic to him.

I'll update this to an advanced review once I catch up on Patreon.

 Welcome to BuyMort! 

For the low low price of $1,000,000 Morties you're now able to read one of the most entertaining and well written stories on Royal Road for FREE.

If you don't think this is a steal, our nearest BuyMort associate will happily change your mind! Forcefully!

Style - Super entertaining. Very much show, not tell. We're just amping up and our authors have been posting everyday. Their synergy is so high I never realized it was two people writing until I read the author note. 

Grammar - The grammar is great. I haven't seen any errors so jarring that I've lost immersion. There may be one or two issues but so far I haven't caught any.

Story - Really good. The easy inclusion of alien life, the smooth explanation of what our MC is thinking when confronted by challenges, and the far left occurences that somehow make perfect sense and the willingess to just stomp someone in the dirt sometimes makes this story great. We have a few Chekhov guns cocked and ready as well, which I'm looking forward to seeing fired.

The last time I felt this excited to read something was when I read The Outer Sphere, by Macronomicon. 

Character Score - Our MC is really, really tired of the bullshit and I how that adds to his character. His relationship with his boss and his geriatric cum ge-robotic neighbour Phyllis feels real and organic. Each and every character have their own motivations and personality and while the side characters aren't the focus, we still become invested and interested in them. That to me is a sign of good writing. 

SOLID humor. Hilarious characters. The True MC is the hidden superpower that is Granny on LSD.

Didn't get that far, but was worth it for the laughs. 

Author was cruel a few times with humor on how MC wasted opportunities he didn't know existed just to torment us.

Not sure where story is going given the premise that gets explored in the first dozen chapters, but if nothing else enjoy the humor.

So much promise wasted

I loved the premise of the Buymort and the way it conquers the universe, so unique, fun and endless possibilities.  I like the style and setting. This Novel is destroyed by the writing of the characters. I've never hated a protagonist more.  A dumb doormat that is controlled by impulsive neurotic behavior, as well as his hormones towards an disgusting alien snake for seemingly no reason other than 'boobs' (and I think that critique is being generously kind and understated). It was obvious the arthur was going for 'lovable loser' but left out anything redeeming or lovable. I can't even believe it's possible for the author not to cringe at his own work while writing. The Arthur doesn't hide the faults, read a dozen chapters, if you like it then you'll like the rest but everything you hate will just get magnified and continued. I read 50 chapters hoping the protagonist would show some signs of growth but he stays the same and I couldn't take it anymore. One of the best ideas for a book just wasted... yup 200 words is too long, I feel like I'm beating a dead horse at this point