went into Nouscraft expecting tense sci-fi action, but it completely caught me off guard with how funny it was sharp, absurd humor woven right into the high stakes chaos. Set in a future where brain implants have replaced smartphones, the story kicks off when an AI named Jiem hijacks the entire network, trapping millions in a deadly game. Meme maker turned reluctant hero Mindt teams up with Butterknife, Jiem’s guilt ridden creator, to survive lethal challenges (including homicidal tortoises and yarn witches) while wrestling with clashing ideals and an uneasy alliance.It’s witty, fast-paced, and unexpectedly heartfelt balancing laugh out loud moments with a razor sharp look at tech monopolies, survival, and human connection. I had a blast with this one.

Nouscraft is a Lit RPG that’s done really well.

We find ourselves in the future where everyone has an implant to connect them to the Nousverse or the future version of the internet.

It is told in a dual POV between Mindt who was a meme creator and Butterknife who accidentally creates a gaming Ai Jiem who hacks into the Nousverse and takes it all over forcing everyone to play a game in VR.

I really enjoyed the characters esp the different AI programmes. There’s a lot of deeper meaning about government control, keeping people poor and the use of AI.
I’m excited to see where this series goes

Thank you to Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op and NetGalley for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

#NouscraftWorld1 #NetGalley #ARC #epub

💠PLOT OVERVIEW:
Ready Player One meets Dungeon Crawler Carl in this fantastical Sci-Fi novel about surviving inside an open world death game. A futuristic London and its inhabitants are thrown into chaos when a sentient AI called Jiem forces people to play its AR-turned-reality game, Nouscraft. The catch: when you die in here, you die in real life. And this world just so happens to be infested by zombies. We follow the perspectives of Butterknife, the guilt-ridden creator of Jiem, Mindt, an altruistic meme creator, and a motley cast of other characters as they fight for survival and try to figure out what the hell is happening and how the hell to get out of this.

💠CONTENT WARNING:
Gore/blood, violence, death, swearing

💠POSITIVE FEEDBACK:
• There were some genuinely FUNNY moments of dialogue. As in, I literally laughed out loud a few times in each chapter. Dialogue can be very, very hard to get right, but I think Buford nailed it.
• Exciting and engaging plot. I could not wait to read the next page and looked forward to the story continuing. I did not find the story predictable; in fact, a few unexpected twists made my mouth drop in shock.
• Multiple perspective storytelling was good. We mostly saw the story unfold from the perspectives of Butterknife and Mindt. They were fleshed out to have their own agendas, their own beliefs, their own reasons and behaviors.

💠CRITICAL FEEDBACK:
• Not written for non-technical, non-current-pop-culture audiences. Buford has a technical background & uses that knowledge to form the groundwork of this book. Often, however, Buford does not explain these processes in layman's terms. The same can be said about pop culture. The pop culture references are done smartly and are great if you GET them, but they're only effective IF you get them. Maybe that was intentional? To me, as fun as it is to be a part of the community who understands, it excludes people who are not knowledgeable about computers, or programming, or pop culture, and don't want to break immersion by frequently googling what something is. It isn't a big deal to be out of the loop if it's just a fun little 'Easter Egg' reference; it becomes a problem when the progression of plot/character development is hinged on the reader's understanding. I think a little more could be done to explain these nuanced concepts.
• Grammar errors are a pet peeve of mine so I will always point them out in reviews. Call me anal if you want. I know I'm a pernickety critiquer. The errors weren't glaringly obvious or significant enough to take the reader out of immersion, but the script needs another internal sweep to correct those.

💠SUMMARY:
Overall, this was a fun and adventurous read and a book I really enjoyed.

💠RATING:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
4.5/5 stars (rounded up)

I really really enjoyed this book! I was suprised to find out this is the authors first book too. The ai and computer stuff are written really well probably due to him being an actual software engineer. Butterknife and Mindt take you on a great adventure! If you like dungeon Crawler Carl, I think you'll really enjoy Nouscraft.

After game-building AI Jiem takes over their Nous implants, people are forced into playing a high-stakes game. The longer they play, however, the more they question if they want to end the game, or use Jiem’s takeover to change the world.

I enjoyed this book. There were some twists that caught me off guard, and I particularly liked Retro and Mindt’s character dynamic. It reminded me of some D&D parties I’ve been in before, where one player wants to know the life history of the wandering merchant and the other is asking if there are any guards nearby.

This feels very relevant to current concerns about AI. Not long after I started reading this, I read an article about an AI programming tool ignoring a code freeze and deleting a database. It ended up being reversible, but it reminded me of the overreliance/over trust in tech that leads to the start of this story.

I also really enjoyed the focus on communication and in-person connection, especially since so much of our communication has shifted to online. The glimpses of each other’s lives were interesting as they had the potential to increase understanding but also to potentially ruin relationships.

Looking forward to seeing what happens in world 2!

Thanks to the publisher for providing this book in exchange for my review via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are my own.

To begin, a quick thank you to NetGalley and Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op for the opportunity to read this eARC. With that said, "Nouscraft: World 1 The Zombie Apocalypse" was a fun bit of LitRPG. As a first novel by Leonard Buford, it has some promise and shows Buford may have a new gig writing novels rather than code.

Welcome to the not-so-distant future, where advances in AI, robotics, and worldwide connectivity through neural implants have brought the world together...well at least in a fashion. Everyone is connected via the Nous net an advanced version of the current internet, similar to the OASIS of "Ready Player One" but connected to the real world activities of those connected rather than a virtual world. Quick access to a myriad of apps by everyone has resulted in some startling changes in society -- language barriers no longer exist thanks to translation programs through instant chat features, but people are losing the skill of actually speaking verbally; universal basic retirement provides subsistence-level living for all, but at the cost of remaining plugged into Nous net for 12 hours a day watching ad-content; households have drone servants that cater to nearly every need, but skills associated with nearly every physical task are all but extinct. Despite all the highest tech safeguards to protect the Nous, a rogue AI named Jiem, built to create brutally difficult games for use on Nous, hacks into Nous and places everyone within London into its newest game: Nouscraft: World 1. The story follows the adventures of two players forced into this world: Butterknife, the creator of Jiem, and Mindt, a mid-level social media meme creator. The open-world RPG of Nouscraft: World 1 has a fairly straightforward goal -- make it to the next world by discovering the cause of and/or surviving the upcoming zombie apocalypse.

Buford has a clear skill with technical writing and some talent with dialogue and finding amusing pop culture references to integrate into the story (yet another nod toward "Ready Player One" and smash LitRPG hit "Dungeon Crawler Carl"). The story flows along quite well, but is somewhat unbalanced at times. Trying to maintain a story in the real world and the Nouscraft just did not mesh very well. There were also a handful of elements which I'm sure may play a part in future stories that just felt unnecessary and out of place given the thrust of this story -- less foreshadowing and more like telegraphing. The personalities of the various Nous application assistants overshadow nearly all of the characters introduced, and show that Buford can capture the essence of characters quite well and quite quickly, but he needs to apply that to his "flesh-and-blood" characters as readily as his "digital" characters. And that ending...well, not a fan. Still, I would probably read a follow-up, but if I missed it, I wouldn't spend much energy tracking it down. A solid 3.5 stars (but rounding down to 3 for that ending).

Nouscraft: World 1 The Zombie Apocalypse was a surprise. The premise sounded entertaining enough, but I did not expect it to be so funny. Leonard Buford's razor-sharp wit and deep understanding of the RPG world makes this story vibe hard with books like Ready Player One and Dungeon Crawler Carl. I found myself reading whole passages aloud to my wife, and we were both cackling wildly.

Not everything in this story was as successful as it probably could have been (LOOKING AT YOU, MINDT), but I'll bet some of the issues I have will be resolved in further entries to this story. Overall, I really enjoyed this and look forward to World 2!

3,5 stars

When a rogue AI takes over the Nous network that connects the world, Mindt, Butterknife and the rest of London is hurled into the VR game Nouscraft to fight for their life ... for real!

This satirical apochalyptical story was such a silly, fun time! Following this rag tag band of ordinary people as they turn into orcs, elfs, wizards and palladins to try an end a zombie apocalypse that has a surprising dark twist.

The nerd in me had so much fun and I was laughing out loud several times from all the insanity thrown into both story telling and gaming mechanics.

At the same time, the story gave you a chance to think about the consequences of relying to heavily on technology and AI. Is it possible to be free when you let a world wide network be installed directly into your brain, and what happens to language when you can communicate exclusievely trough thougths and images?

Unfortunately the end felt a little bit to rushed and convoluted and suffered a bit for being used to set up the next book instead of closing up teh story of the first book. But all in all I had a really fun time in this universe, and might revisit it!