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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.
Also, because it's got zombies and stuff, this one can get pretty gory. So just be aware of that.