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Many years ago some friends of mine asked me to come up with a basic plot for an indie beat-em-up game they were thinking about making. We decided that the story would be about zombies -- it would follow the adventures of a hapless nerd named Stu, who sets out to rescue his favorite TV star in the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse. The idea was, Stu would start out almost totally helpless, but after completing each level and learning a new skill from the crazy people he encountered (boxers, cops, backwoods survivalists, and so on) he would gradually become an over-the-top badass jumping his motorcycle over fiery pits while blasting zombies like Rambo or something. That was the basic premise of Hardcore.
Unfortunately the video game project eventually fell through. I hung on to the idea, because I liked it, but I didn't know quite what to do with it -- it just didn't seem like a good fit for a prose novel. A video game, sure. A comic book, maybe. But a novel?
But then this LitRPG boom hit, and I started thinking Hardcore might work as prose novel after all. So I brushed off my old outline, expanded it, changed a few things around, and started writing it. I confess I'm not really a big fan of the LitRPG or "progression" genres, but this seemed like it might be a fun project and a nice change of pace for me. And because these genres are very popular on Royal Road, I decided to serialize it over there, in addition to making it available on my Patreon. It should be available on Amazon by the end of 2026.
I should note that the LitRPG elements are fairly light; there's no stat boxes or number crunching or anything like that. Also, because it's got zombies and stuff, this one can get pretty gory. So just be aware of that.