Couch Potato Chaos: Gamebound

By: Erik Rounds

Narrated by: Sarah Sampino

You know those times when you’re surrounded by a squadron of bloodthirsty ninjas, your back is to the wall, you’re down to your last heart container, and all hope seems lost? In situations like that, it’s important not to panic, to take a deep breath, and to remember that even if you do shuffle off this mortal coil, by the laws of Etheria you’ll shuffle right back on it again.

Meet Tasha, a couch potato with no accomplishments to her name. That all changes one fateful day when she gets sucked into the world of Etheria. Here, in this world of adventure, she can become the strong person she’s always wanted to be.

After rescuing a princess from ninjas, one thing leads to another, and before she knows it, she’s drawn into a massive quest to save Etheria. With friends by her side, Tasha must figure out who she really is.

This is a LitRPG/RPG Gamelit novel with stat progression, video game mechanics, and narrative spreadsheets. It features heavy satire and the kind of silly over-the-top situations you might expect in a 16-bit video game.

No velociraptors have been harmed in the production of this novel.

©2018 Erik Rounds (P)2019 Erik Rounds

Great book with some unique ideas.

Disclaimer: I received this audiobook at no-cost from the author in exchange for an unbiased review.

So I really enjoyed this book. The MC was relatable and enjoyable to follow. The humor in this book led towards absurdism and references to other movies and games, though I never felt like I wasn't getting the joke if I didn't know the reference and the references didn't feel dated, though some may be more sensitive to that than others. Most of all, the book was unafraid to poke fun at itself.

The author built a video game world where the video game mechanics are explained and treated as we would the laws of the universe. in addition, the main character's class is a unique take on a cliche idea that takes something overpowered and makes it comparatively underpowered, but still useful.

One thing I feel I absolutely need to point out us even though it's a hard LitRPG with statistics and experience and leveling, there are minimal stat listings. Usually it's only the relevant stats at that moment and the only outright listed stat block is at the very end of the book in the character listing.

The narration was easy to follow, and the book's writing translated well to being read aloud. If I had to point out one thing that I didn't particularly care for about the book it would be that there is minimal actual challenge and repercussions that the main character faces, the stakes feel low. This is partly due to the nature of the book, but at the same time, it is something I feel could use improvement.

really well done

liked the couch potato concept and the references that comes with it. looking forward to the next book.

good narrator a bit boring of a story though

in the very beginning it does a multi pov but once you get past that the story really starts but despite getting legendary abilities and the ability to slide stats she continues to make bad decisions and poor use of skills ect over though between the weak battle scenes they do a lot and I mean a lot of info dumps so often it's hard to keep up with. with that being said the story in between these points is pretty boring.

Great fun

I really enjoyed my time with this little gem. Erik Rounds has a fun sense of humor and the questing was very fulfilling. Sarah Sampino does a great job with narration and helped make the listen flow well. I’ll be looking for more books she narrates.

I rather quite liked this one

I was given this free review copy audio book at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

I liked the unique class the author created for this book. The whole couch potatoe thing was funny and made for a unique approach to the genre. The narration is pretty good for the most part. Her male voices were a little hard to diferintiate, but it wasn't so bad that I couldn't follow the story or track the character speaking. All in all, I rather quite enjoyed this book and would definitely be open to more in the series when it comes out.

Way Fun

Great story and a lot of fun. It was nice to see a girl playing video games for a change. Hope there is a book 2 coming soon.

Fun story!

Imaginative and fun. Really enjoyed the quirky plot line and characters. Narration was awesome. Can’t wait to see what happens next.

so-so

The initial idea of thus book was good I found myself intrigued interesting character build up interesting design. But as you get further in the names of things just started to be super annoying and the numerous upon numerous references to Disney movies was definitely kind of weird and felt completely unnecessary. all in all it was not a horrible book but it was by no means a great book.

Fun light-hearted LitRPG

Couch Potato Chaos is the story of a woman video game developer who is timid and closed off and gets whisked into a game world with a long history and back story. While there she gains confidence and grows strength as a person which helps her back IRL professionally. The Couch Potato player class was unique and it made her combat style fun to follow because no other LitRPG trope has followed that. I enjoyed a lot of well placed pop culture, anime, and LitRPG references sprinkled throughout (War Aeternis shoutout for the win). I’ll probably grab the second book when it comes out.

Very enjoyable for the average litrpg reader.

The story and skill system of the book are well thought out and enjoyable. The skill system and unique class Couch Potato are entertaining to think about and potentially very powerful but I feel like their use in the book was limited and didn't make sense other than acquiring a skill for a plot point a prime example being double jump she needs it for a plot point and after that its rarely ever mentioned other than for other plot points. The main character is very relatable as a gamer and the story will have you nostalgic for video games you've already played especially classic rpgs. The timing in the book doesn't make much sense due to the fact that the story takes place over about a half a year period and while the journey is progressing the characters level doesn't seem to unless the story is focusing on it the party would be battling monsters every day during the journey but suddenly get 2 or even 3 levels during a battle the writer decides to focus on showing how easy it is to level which makes you question why the characters aren't much higher level by the end of the book. Skill development is about the same The main character finds a skill they have an interest in (usually for a later plot point) then spends the necessary time (usually less than a day) leveling it to 1 too be able to keep it but over a half of year period the main character should have either a lot more skills or much higher level skills and leaves them feeling like they didn't get enough attention. The main character is easy to relate to and her background while not fully fleshed out is done so enough that most readers in the target audience will have enough in common with her to enjoy her adventure but where the story really shines in my opinion is the potential for world building some of which is done in the book and in the supporting cast. Ari and Pan's sub-story quickly became my favorite part of this book and they may very well be my favorite LitRPG supporting characters to date, most of the other supporting characters are defined almost as well as those two making for an enjoyable encounter. In the end despite how I started off this review I really enjoyed this book, the author does a fantastic job of drawing you into the world he created and I only pointed out those issues with the hopes of helping they probably wont take much away from the average reader. Additionally the narrator Sarah Sampino did a fantastic job especially with the characters facing unique speech problems and challenges. I look forward to both the author and narrators future works.