Discount Dan

Read Time: 4 Minutes

Discount Dan’s Backroom Bargains by James Hunter is a survival-heavy LitRPG that dumps its everyman hero into a chaotic alternate reality and tells him to figure it out fast or die trying. If you’ve read Dungeon Crawler Carl (DCC), you’ll probably get a strong sense of déjà vu. It’s not a copy, exactly, but it definitely shares a creative blood type. A smart-mouthed system, over-the-top violence, underdressed main characters, and a weird pet companion. All the ingredients are there, just shuffled slightly.

Dan gets sucked into a version of the “Backrooms” (popular creepypasta location) and is immediately way out of his depth, barely scraping through an early encounter thanks to a powerful artefact that promises short-term survival… but in theory paints a big target on his back. There’s a system interface in play, and in this case, a researcher entity acting like a knock-off version of DCC’s AI announcer: snarky, vaguely sociopathic, and doesn’t much care about your survival one way or the other.

Where DCC drops the protagonist into a literal dungeon crawl of levelled floors, boss fights, and a brutal gameshow/tournament structure, Discount Dan’s takes its cues from the Backrooms mythos. Think endless liminal spaces, flickering fluorescents, and a creeping sense of surreal unease. It’s more magic system focussed where artefact level you up. That ambient horror vibe gives Dan’s world a weirder edge, with floors so far themed like abandoned car parks, empty shopping malls (not counting the mimics and other enemies), empty fun parks and the like.

Like Carl, Dan isn’t a teenager or fresh college dropout like a lot of LitRPG. He’s a former marine and construction business owner, which gives him a more grounded, weary vibe. Much of the Backrooms so far is packed full of 80s and 90s relics, from Pogs and Zima to discarded gym equipment and other random ephemera. The artefacts Dan finds aren’t exactly slick or high-tech. They’re weird, low-rent items infused with magic to make equipable artefacts, like a Pog slammer becomes a magical shield or an old jockstrap offers damage reduction.

I know I’ve done a lot of DCC comparison so far, but it’s hard not to when there’s so many similarities. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so there’s that I guess. I do like the whole setting up a store aspect, it’s like crossing the early (best) parts of Jake’s Magical Market and the survival and system aspects of DCC combined for an interesting mix. There’s just so much that feels like it’s a straight up copy, though.

Rather than heart-covered boxers, Dan starts out in high-cut daisy dukes and a bathrobe. He picks up Croc (a dog made from Croc footwear with the personality of a golden retriever and a toddler)… so a talking dog companion instead of a cat. Croc isn’t an outright asshole to begin with, I mean he is a dog so always going to be your best friend. Croc is also obsessed with a particular show, not Gossip Girl like Princess Donut but the Twilight series.

Production-wise, it’s a bit rough. Considering this was an Audible production, I was surprised by how many awkward edits and audio skips I noticed when usually their stuff is polished. Some retakes were obvious where they’d been spliced, and some other dodgy edits where I had to go back and re-listen to see if my earbuds were playing up. The New Zealand accent for Croc was… not great. Distractingly grating, honestly. The cynic in me thinks Audible saw the success of DCC and snapped this up hoping for lightning to strike twice.

Despite all the obvious similarities, it’s not a bad story. It’s a sit back, take your brain off the hook violent fun with a few fresh touches and a lot of familiar ones. It’s certainly hitting the right notes that I enjoyed with DCC, the whole vibe is one I enjoy, and I think I’ll like this series just as much.

If you’re a DCC fan looking for something to scratch that itch, this’ll likely do it. Doubly so if you also liked the shop-building of Jake’s Magical Market, and maybe also a fan of Ready Player One. Just don’t expect it to hit quite as hard.

Temu-Carl? Maybe. But that still puts it towards the top of the pile. I’ll definitely be checking out the next one when it comes along.

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