History (The Perfect Run)

After Maxime J. Durand finished Vainqueur the Dragon, he explained his plans to write a new story, and hinted at the two possibilities. On September 9th, 2020, he presented his patrons with two options to pick from for his next story. One of them was The Perfect Run, and the other Death's Hand—a Wuxia cultivation story. According to the author, both would be long serials.

He described The Perfect Run: 1) The Perfect Run: a sci-fi superhero comedy. "Hey, I'm Quicksave. I'm immortal, but don't tell anyone." - Quicksave to everyone he meets.

In an alternate Earth, things went off the rails with the discovery of Elixirs: potions created by a mysterious individual called the Alchemist, capable of giving people superpowers. These people, later called the Genomes, received Elixirs at random around the world as a social experiment, causing an era of chaos and instability as governments failed to contain superpowered individuals. Meanwhile, Pharmaceutical companies tried to reproduce the miraculous drugs, but could only create weaker knock-offs.

More than a decade after the apparition of Genomes, 'Old World' governments have all but collapsed, replaced by crime families, superhero protectorates, and mega-corporations trying to manufacture their own elixirs for public consumption. Italy in particular is torn between an alliance of superhero-sponsoring companies, a crime syndicate called the Augusti, and the Meta, a group of dangerous Elixir-addicts. While society recovered,  it is a different world where weak powers can be purchased by the middle-class, and Alchemist-made Elixirs are worth a mountain of gold.

The protagonist, Ryan Romano, alias Quicksave, is a man with strange powers over time. In particular, he has a secret quirk: he can 'save' at any point in time, and return back to the past when killed.

When he receives offers from both villains and heroes to join them, Ryan doesn't see a life choice. He sees alternative routes to a game with different endings... and he has to try them all.

But as troubles begin to pile up, can Quicksave complete his Perfect Run?

The Perfect Run would be a mix of comedy and serial storyline in tone, pretty much like Vainqueur, Rick and Morty or Amazon's The Boys. Quicksave is an eccentric mad scientist halfway divorced from reality, happy to try ridiculous stunts simply because he can live through them, and treating almost everything with casual irreverence. Still, he has a strange moral compass and finds himself working for all factions in New Rome at one point (villain, hero, in-between), investigating the city's dark secrets and hidden feuds.

Imagine a superhero game where the same character explores various 'routes,' carrying the knowledge of each as he attempts to find the 'Golden Ending.' It would also play with groundhog day loops scenarios and explore the consequences it has on the person's mental health. The Perfect Run won with 67% of 360 votes. The poll started on September 9th and ended on September 18, 2020.

Maxime published the first chapter for pre-access the day after.

He made several Patreon changes to accomodate the introduction of The Perfect Run on September 28th, 2020.

Maxime officially posted the story on the web serial website Royal Road on October 14th, 2020, along with the first chapter.

December 5th was when he published his story on Tapas.

He took a short break for Christmas, leaving no more The Perfect Run chapters being posted after December 22nd, 2020 until the end of the year.

The Perfect Run 's first volume, covering chapters 1 to 50, got published on Amazon. It was pending approval, when it was finally approved on February 13, 2021. Maxime announced the news to his patrons the day after.

The author took a break from writing between April 23rd to the end of April.

TBD

On August 31st, The Perfect Run 's last chapter was posted on Patreon.