Just Monika DDLC’s Intelligent Horror and Hidden Lore
DOKI DOKI LITERATURE CLUB TITLE SCREEN PC
She then deletes Yuri and Natsuki’s character files from your PC and resets the game.
After a very uncomfortably long shot of her body up close, Monika comes on screen and reveals the reason all the characters have been going crazy and dying is that she messed with their character files on your PC, and they became corrupted. Through more and more psychological horror and jump scares, eventually, you get a moment alone with Yuri. Natsuki is suddenly outright aggressive, and Yuri has become murderously obsessed with you. You quickly discover, however, that the game has been completely derailed. If you choose to start a new game again, the game starts seemingly as normal. No amount of saving or loading will bring her back either. Even if you open the source files of the game, she is nowhere to be found. Upon restarting the game, something seems off. As you watch Sayori’s body, the game glitches out and crashes. Just like that, the whole mood of the game takes a drastic 180-degree turn. You go into her house to look for her, only to find out she hung herself in her room. All is well, it’s just a cute dating sim after all! At least it is, until all of a sudden, Sayori doesn’t show up to go with you to the club. Through the course of the game, you learn about the different characters’ lives and their problems. You talk with the girls, write poems with them, and get to know them as you bond. There’s the bubbly Sayori, the bashful Natsuki, the quiet bookworm Yuri, and the charismatic club president Monika. The game starts and you are dropped into a cutesy anime-style visual novel, where you go to your high school’s literature club after school to enjoy time with your clubmates. Surely it can’t be that bad, right? Doki Doki Literature Club title screen A weird warning, considering it’s followed by the title screen show below. Immediately upon starting the game you are greeted with a warning telling you the game is not suitable for children or “those who are easily disturbed”. (ALSO WARNING: This blog post will talk about scenes of graphic violence and suicide, reader discretion is advised) Writing Poems and Making Friends (WARNING: Major spoilers for Doki Doki Literature Club ahead, you have been warned!) Today I would like to talk about this game and the things it did to earn it the incredible amount of attention it received. And few games exemplify this better than Team Salvato’s visual novel dating sim Doki Doki Literature Club, or DDLC for short.
Indie games, horror games or otherwise, tend to make a big impact both in the indie market and on social media when they subvert expectations with their approach to storytelling, gameplay etc. Look at the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise, which is still going strong after a decade since the initial game’s release. For some reason, indie horror games seem to be really good at catching the internet’s attention.
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