The Trial Game of Life Review
Web Novel: The Trial Game of Life by Nong Qing Feng
The Story:
Twenty four year old Tang Cuo dies, then he wakes up to hear a voice telling him that he has failed the trial game of life. The voice is a system announcement that goes over the details of his life assessing his performance. Although, his overall survival rating is high. He's given an A. His recklessness regarding his own life and death in the past leads to him being given an intial character score of -5.
Tang Cuo is then whisked off to an arena surrounded by darkness where there are thousands of other people who’ve all died recently. This is where you’ll really see his personality come out to play. He’s very calm, cool and collected. Tell him he’s dead and he accepts it. Tell him that he now has to compete again and again with his soul on the line and he’ll accept that too. He tends to roll with whatever punches come his way. He looks at the situation and adjusts to suit, but you still see him being kind. For example, there’s a moment where he saves a young girl, who seems to have died from cancer. It’s a pretty obvious way for the author to make you care for the main character, but I think it works. Despite his cold demeanor he still helps people. He is mainly concerned about himself, but he's not interested in screwing anyone else over or harming others, unless they deserve it. It's easy to root for him.
After he’s able to successfully pass his first batch of games he arrives in Yong Ye (Eternal Night) city. Unfortunately for him there’s no guidebook and no tutorials. As a reader you’re learning things as he does about how everything works.
It turns out that what we consider the real world is merely a trial. It’s a game on easy mode. Life is a survival game and after death everyone is forced to return to Yong Ye city where they need to compete in various survival games called dungeons. They can earn points and rewards such as special abilities and items to increase their chances of success, but they can also die again. These deaths are often horrific and will cause the person to spend even more time in Yong Ye city as NPC’s (non player characters) before they can get to reincarnate.
This is when his poor character score comes back to bite him in the ass because it leaves him weak and constantly hovering on the verge of death. He needs to earn some points by competing in the dungeons as soon as possible. Luckily, he’s got his wits and there's a strange guy, who’s actually a top player in disguise, who's willing to go with him. His time in Yong Ye city has officially begun.
Who’s this for?
The novel has a lot of game elements so I think that people who like playing MMORPGs might enjoy it. Personally, that’s not something I’m into but the author does a good job of explaining it all.
If you like adventure, mystery, horror, supernatural and fantasy genres this story might work for you because each dungeon is a little different. Some of them require you to solve a particular mystery while others are more of a straight forward competition in terms of strength. For me it’s more about the journey rather than any particular destination since not all of the stories have great resolutions.
There’s also romance in this, but their relationship feels inevitable. It’s about two people who used to be friends/ companions meeting again after a long time apart and realizing that they feel something more for each other. It’s a simple transition into a relationship. If you’re looking for a lot of the typical misunderstandings and “will they, won’t they” type of drama then this isn’t the book for you.
The Downsides:
The biggest downside is that it’s not completely translated. Strictly Bromance did a great job, but that translation ends at chapter 156. Chrysanthemum Gardens is currently doing a translation of it. If you want to finish the novel you'll have to wait or head on over to a machine translation (MTL) but MTL's can be an absolute mess.
The next problem is the sheer amount of characters. There are a lot of names to remember and it can get confusing at times. There’s a helpful character guide but it’s still a lot to keep track of.
Lastly, the main characters are so calm and cool about everything that it can effect readers. If they don’t care why should I? It often doesn’t feel like the characters are actually in danger. If I were to compare this to another infinite flow novel like Kaleidoscope of Death, then there were many times while I was reading that book where I was worried about characters. That book had me freaking out and totally afraid of what would come next. That is not the case here. The characters don’t care and neither do I. It’s just chill, no worrying needed. It’s not high stakes in my opinion. It didn’t bother me though because I was just looking for a light read when I found this.