The Nouscraft Trilogy
From Buford, the creator of Casting Call Club.
A completed dark LitRPG trilogy. A rogue AI forces 10.8 billion people into a death game. Multi-POV, morally gray protagonists, dark humor, and a Prisoner's Dilemma where the stakes are real. For fans of Dungeon Crawler Carl, Game of Thrones, and Red Rising.
About the Books
Nouscraft World 1 - The Zombie Apocalypse
Everyone's playing. Nobody signed up.
When brain implants replaced smartphones, life got easy. Then a rogue AI hijacked every implant on the planet, started handing out swords, and refused to answer customer support questions.
The rules are simple. Complete the World Quest before the time is up or die. Kill monsters, earn XP, level up. And the zombies shuffling through the streets? They're real people.
You've been farming them for XP.
Mindt sees the apocalypse as the opportunity of a lifetime. The World Quest's prize can rewrite any law on Earth, and she intends to claim it.
Butterknife is the reclusive programmer whose code made the whole catastrophe possible. Now he's stuck inside the game he broke, trying to keep people alive long enough to fix it — even if he has to go against his own team.
Spencer is a 77-year-old Scottish grandfather who picked the Berserker class because it had the fewest buttons. He's wearing a tutu. He doesn't know why. He's surprisingly okay with it.
Three days. Millions of players. One prize that could reshape civilization. An AI game master who's treating the whole thing like a game show. And the clock is already ticking.
Book 1 of a completed dark LitRPG trilogy. Full-cast audiobook available.
About the series: Multi-POV death game with real stakes, morally gray protagonists, dark humor, dependence upon tech, real human connection, the elites who control everything, and the ones who fight back.
For fans of Dungeon Crawler Carl, Ready Player One, and Sword Art Online
Nouscraft World 2 - Royale
The AI game master wants peace and love.
The humans want power.
The Prisoner's Dilemma wants what all game theory wants: math.
Billions are trapped in a shifting megastructure floating in space. Every seven days, the faction leaders vote: ALLY or BETRAY. Cooperate and everyone advances. Betray and you steal everything. Drop to zero and you die.
Mindt has an agenda she's not sharing. Spencer has a granddaughter he needs to protect. And Beam — blind in the real world, running the game's largest empire — is about to learn that everything she believed was built on a lie.
Nuclear weapons. Space Invaders. Really angry clerks. And worst of all, physics.
The Royale begins. The only question is who betrays whom first.
Book 2 of a completed dark LitRPG trilogy. Multi-POV death game with morally gray protagonists, an AI game master running social experiments on humanity, and a Prisoner's Dilemma where the stakes are real. For fans of Dungeon Crawler Carl, Game of Thrones, and Red Rising.
For fans of Red Rising, Battle Royale, and The Hunger Games
Nouscraft World 3 - First Past the Post
Run or die. And running just means dying slower.
The game enters its final chapter: a race across twelve zodiac Titans, each one designed to break you in a new and festive way. Christmas. Halloween. Burning Man. Oktoberfest. Holi. Groundhog Day.
"Holiday is capitalist scheme to take your money. But also holiday is here to kill you." — Slavic Santa
The ones who survived Worlds 1 and 2 enter the final race carrying debts, secrets, and the suspicion that the real enemy hasn't shown their face yet. It's a secret that has been hiding in plain sight for fifty years.
When Nouscraft is finally shut off, who will be able to answer the question: What comes after?
The conclusion of a completed dark LitRPG trilogy.
For fans of The Stormlight Archive (epic scope), Dark Souls (punishing stakes), and Squid Game (death game social commentary)
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Audiobook Preview
Full-cast narration brings the zombie apocalypse to life. Listen to a sample from the Nouscraft audiobook and hear the world of Jiem, Butterknife, and Mindt for yourself.
Available wherever audiobooks are sold!
As Featured In
About the Series
Nouscraft combines the best elements of LitRPG, science fiction, and fantasy to create an immersive reading experience unlike any other.
Game Mechanics
Detailed RPG systems with stats, skills, and progression that feel authentic to gamers.
Rich World-Building
Immersive environments where virtual and augmented reality seamlessly blends with real life.
Epic Characters
Heroes and villains that are not always clear who is who.
"A series that will keep you turning pages late into the night, questioning the boundaries between game and reality."
What Readers Are Saying
Join thousands of readers already immersed in the Nouscraft universe
A wild, darkly funny take on the LitRPG apocalypse.
What I really enjoyed about Nouscraft: World 1 is how creative and unpredictable the premise is. The idea of brain implants turning the world into a real-life game with quests, classes, and XP is both clever and unsettling, especially when the "zombies" turn out to be real people. The story balances dark stakes with a surprising amount of humor, and the mix of characters keeps things entertaining, from the ambitious Mindt to Butterknife trying to fix the mess he helped create. I especially liked the absurd but memorable moments, like the 77-year-old berserker in a tutu. It's fast-paced, imaginative, and full of twists that make the apocalypse feel both chaotic and strangely fun.
satire and suspense
The Zombie Apocalypse is an absolute rollercoaster that refuses to take itself too seriously while still delivering sharp stakes and inventive worldbuilding. What impressed me most was the balance between satire and suspense. On one page, you're laughing at killer yarn witches or meme-makers stumbling into leadership; on the next, you're holding your breath through deadly encounters that feel genuinely threatening. The humor never undercuts the danger but keeps the tone from sinking into grimdark despair. Fans of LitRPG will appreciate that the system mechanics actually matter. For me, Nouscraft felt like Ready Player One colliding with Black Mirror, sprinkled with Dungeon Crawler Carl's chaotic energy.
Brilliant! Quirky and serious and completely original!
While I love dystopian novels, I'm typically not a fan of LitRPG. Despite that caveat, Author Leonard Buford captivated me with this tale that successfully blends a hefty dose of snark with a frightening apocalyptic event caused and controlled by artificial intelligence. There are definitely standout moments throughout the entire book. One that caused me to shake my head and chuckle was when Jiem's avatar showed up at the door in a 'peace and love' t-shirt to negotiate with Mindt. And the ending... just wow! Brilliant! Even if LitRPG isn't your thing, I'd recommend it. It's serious and quirky and entertaining all rolled together... and frighteningly, perhaps even a warning about what could happen to our world with the advent of AI.
Great story with twists and turns and a fun British humor read
Nouscraft is a very engaging LitRPG written with British wit and intelligence that shines through on every page. The story is very well written, fun and at times quite disturbing. Characters are all fun and very British, the worldbuilding with the haves and the have nots, UBI and the Nousnet and water being brought by delivery drones is very near future dystopia - and the game system fun and engaging. It is not just a zombie apocalypse kind of book - far from it. But what and who the zombies are, well - read the book and find out..! It's quite a shock.
Power, Responsibility, and Tech Dependency
Leonard Buford takes a premise that feels plausible -- brain implants replacing smartphones within a seamless augmented world run by AI -- and detonates it. The world-building feels alarmingly real. Even if LitRPG isn't your usual genre, this fast, inventive, darkly clever book is chaotic in the best way: controlled with something urgent to say about our relationship with technology. A cross between dystopian satire and survival thriller, it's a brilliant lens for examining what happens when gamification swallows reality.
Wild, Brilliant, and Unlike Anything Else
Nouscraft is pure chaos in the best possible way. It's sci-fi, fantasy, satire, and cyberpunk all rolled into one insane ride. The worldbuilding is mind-bending -- brain implants, killer AI, and cryokinetic magic somehow all make sense here. Mindt and Butterknife are such unique, flawed heroes that you can't help but root for them. It's smart, funny, and surprisingly deep beneath the madness.
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse
Zombieland meets Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, with lots of new stuff thrown in between. Sometimes a book can't decide what genre it should be in and those stories are the hidden groundbreakers that just might be the next great trend. This story was funny, inventive and took the humor of 70s and 80s science fiction comedies and turned it up a little higher than necessary, so much so that they added another notch and now we're at 12. Give this one a try.
Chaos In A Good Way
This book is a wild ride from start to finish. The world hooked me instantly, with its mix of futuristic tech like brain implants and old-school magic like sorcery and paladins. The author does a great job of blending clever jokes with non-stop action. The strange bad guys were both funny and creepy, making for some unforgettable scenes. But for all the madness, the book has a strong heart. It's a powerful story about trust, survival, and what it means to be a person in a crazy world.
The rogue AI twist was what made the story
I really enjoyed how the author went about world building with augmented reality with implants. I'm normally not a fan of LitRPG, but I found myself enjoying this read and I think it was because of the AI twist. The mischievous AI made me chuckle out loud a couple of times, hence the five stars.
Zombies! Love It
I love reading zombie books and getting a new take on zombie adventures. This book did not disappoint. In this book, the zombies are actually people, which is a unique twist. Complimented with dark humor, game mechanics, and real emotional stakes has made this book a delight to read.
A chaotic, clever sequel that leans fully into its wild sci-fi game premise.
Leonard takes the strange, high-concept setup from the first book and turns the dial up to eleven, throwing billions of people into a shared, shifting battleground that feels both absurd and unsettling. The mix of dark humor, unpredictable factions, and rule-bending physics keeps the pacing fast and fun. I especially enjoyed how the idea of "peace and love" immediately collapses under human ambition. It's imaginative, chaotic, and never takes itself too seriously, which makes it a thoroughly entertaining ride.
Chaotic, Clever, and Addictively Readable - A Prisoner's Dilemma With Real Teeth
The "ALLY or BETRAY" vote every seven days is such a clean, brutal engine for tension -- simple rules, catastrophic consequences. Even with billions on the line and factions colliding like pinballs, the story keeps returning to messy, human motivations: fear, pride, love, ambition, survival. Spencer's protective drive adds real heart, Beam's perspective is fascinating, and Mindt's secrets create a steady undertow of dread. If you like dark LitRPG with big-brain game theory, relentless stakes, and characters you cannot fully trust (including the AI), Royale is a smart, savage ride.
Sequel that did not disappoint
After I finished literally devouring book one, I was delighted to find the second book -- and like the first, it is a fast paced, highly imaginative piece of highly intelligent, highly amusing British fantasy that did not disappoint. Almost impossible to put down. Seriously though, great to see the same characters continuing their adventure -- and what a ride it is!
A gripping survival game with a personal touch
This was one of those stories that grabbed me from the beginning. As a grandfather, I related to Spencer's heart wrenching desire to do anything to save his granddaughter inside the megastructure. The voting system added suspense to an already suspenseful story. "Ally or Betray" really made you think about what you would do in those situations. There are moral dilemmas that make you take a look inside yourself. This book went down quick because it was really fun to read!
A Thrilling Return to a Rich, Imaginative World
Builds confidently on the foundation of the first book and raises the stakes in every way. The world feels larger, the conflicts more intense, and the characters more deeply tested as power, loyalty, and ambition collide. The author does an excellent job of expanding the lore without overwhelming the reader, making the setting feel alive and consequential.
An epic expansion of the Nouscraft universe!
If you thought the first one was good, Nouscraft World 2: Royale takes it to a whole new level. The fusion of high-tech sci-fi and classic fantasy elements is handled perfectly, creating a 'Royale' setting that feels both dangerous and incredibly vivid. The stakes are higher, the world is more expansive, and the lore is deeper than ever.
blends dark humor, politics and survival
A tense, strategy-driven continuation that sharpens the moral stakes. The Prisoner's Dilemma framework keeps every alliance unstable, and the multi-POV cast adds depth. The AI's social experiment angle is clever, blending dark humor, politics, and survival into a gripping, high-consequence LitRPG installment.
Good sci-fi adventure
I liked the way Nouscraft World 2: Royale continued from the previous book and provided us another beautifully crafted sci-fi adventure! With good writing and rich world-building, it managed to do justice to the overall plot. The pacing is right and I found the characters really interesting.
You should read this!
Very fun and different LitRPG story. The mix of strategy, game theory, and survival keeps the tension high the whole time. I liked the multiple characters and how their choices affect everyone else. The world feels huge and unpredictable. If you enjoy smart sci-fi with high stakes, this one is definitely worth reading.
Cool
A great sci fi novel. I thoroughly enjoyed the author's world building, as well as the fast paced action really got me hooked!