LitFPS: A Book Genre on Steriods!
- Angel Ramon
- Nov 4, 2017
- 4 min read
I'm sure if you're an indie author or a total geek like I am for books you have probably heard of LitRPG. There are many articles on what LitRPG is and it's become a pretty cool thing, I met some cool people on groups specializing on the genre. However I'm not here to repeat what LitRPG is, you can google it and read up on well-written post on what it is. I'm here to talk about a variation of LitRPG or Gamelit, depending on your point of view, it's called LitFPS. If you're a real fan or a total fanatic for my work you might have an idea what it is. For the rest of you, I will explain, like right now. lol
If you played any First Person Shooter games like Doom, Quake, or Wolfestein 3D, then LitFPS is simply a First Person Shooter in the form of a literary piece of work such as a book. You might ask, how can you put the elements of a FPS onto a book? Well, that is a tricky thing to pull off indeed. Unlike RPG's or your regular read, FPS's are best known for their non-stop shoot'em up style of gameplay. Lots of the classic FPS shooters that I've played were more gameplay than story, more like 80% Gameplay and 20% Story. However, in my point of view that gives alot of room to build a cool story around all the action while inserting some rather cool game mechanics such as your regular HUD (Heads Up Display). You might ask, do you have any examples? That I do!
Above are three screenshots of my current work in progress, Life's a Beach, which is the fourth book in my Thousand Years War Sci-Fi gaming series. As you can see the first screenshot gives the level name, amount of enemies, secret areas to be found, and any special items the reader should be looking out for. The second screenshot shows a snippet of regular gameplay such as picking up health or ammo, finding a secret area, and just regular game text that you would expect to see. The final screenshot shows the end results of a level such as enemies killed and left, secrets found, and if the character leveled up anyway. LitFPS is still a rather "new" genre, so there is really no "correct" way of writing it, yet at least. My style closely fits that of a classic FPS game such as Duke Nukem 3D or Doom and might not be like FPS's of today such as Halo or Call of Duty. However, I prefer the older games to the newer ones. Call me an old fart, lol.
In my story I did add RPG elements such as attributes and weapons upgrades, so it might be FPS mixed with RPG at times. One could write a pure FPS without the RPG elements, but for the sake of a book I feel that the RPG elements helps drive the story instead of being a complete action romp. In my opinion as long as you have a HUD, gaming elements, and elements to a FPS game, it's LitFPS. Only difference from LitRPG is that LitFPS is action oriented and the gaming elements are much simplier than a MMORPG. That doesn't mean it's simpler to write as one has to keep the reader entertained with constant action scenes and moments where the MC is picking up items to give the FPS feel. Too much time away from that and it could start feeling like a portal fiction instead. However, too much action and the reader might lose track of the story. It's a delicate balance, who knows I might be shooting myself in the foot by trying to use the id software formula for my LitFPS due to their run and gun nature of gaming. However it's a fun ride trying a new unknown genre.
If you look up LitFPS Books on google, you'll find my books up there on the top of the google search along a few others. Also under images most of them contain my book covers and a few others, but it's not overly populated. In otherwords, LitFPS has an opportunity to be as big as LitRPG and be the next big thing in nerdy literature. Guess what? I'm jumping in on the bandwagon or you can say I have already. Now you know why I named this blog post, "A genre on steroids". That's because the idea of the genre is for a book that is on steroids with non-stop shooting action mixed in with a decent storyline to drive it. Hopefully one day I'll be some sort of father to this genre, but if not I'm just having fun with it.
Ok geeks and nerds, I think that's enough for today's lesson. Feel free to ask questions or comment on the subject. I'm a firm believer that Doom and Duke Nukem 3D can be converted into a book successfully, with my own personal twists of course. Anyway enjoy your weekend and stay nerdy, but cool.
