If cute anime girls and overwhelming psycho horror were to have a child, it would be Doki Doki Literature Club. A perfect game for Halloween.
Now and then, we encounter games that are not MMOs but still move us in such a way that I just have to write about them. Today, I am doing this for “Doki Doki Literature Club” – a free game on Steam that develops very differently than one might first expect: Link to the Steam page of Doki Doki Literature Club
At first glance, Doki Doki Literature Club appears to be a dating game, like thousands of others. With a regular story, little freedom of choice, and plenty of cute anime girls waiting just for the protagonist.
Right from the first start of the game, you might have slight doubts about what you have downloaded onto your hard drive. Because before it even begins, the game warns us three times:
“The game is not suitable for children and those who are easily disturbed.”
This is surely just a warning because such a dating game might sometimes contain the odd suggestive scene … or?
A cliché dating game – Or is it?
The game begins as one would expect: On the way to school, accompanied by Sayori, a good friend, as the first new school day unfolds. You have to join a club that engages in joint activities after school. As fate would have it, you end up in the literature club, which (of course) consists only of pretty girls:
- Sayori, the long-standing childhood friend who always brings good cheer
- Yuri, the quiet beauty who likes to hide in books
- Monika, the club president who keeps everything together
- Natsuki, the cliché tsundere who is just cute and loves manga
Gradually, the game develops just as one would expect from a dating game. You pick (more or less) one of the girls to spend particularly time with. During the daily “write a poem” task, you then choose only words that your love interest likes. If you succeed, she becomes more and more enthusiastic about you, allowing you to get closer.
In return, we also get poems to read, and some are really good. Each girl has her own style, and often there are interesting statements hidden in the poems. While Yuri enjoys particularly elaborate poems with complex metaphors, Natsuki prefers them simpler, like in this example: Towards the “end” of the game, you reach a typical scene as well. After a small date with Yuri, we see Sayori, who is on the verge of tears, declaring her long-standing love to us.
“Veterans” of this type of game know: This is the last “trap” that a dating game sets for you. Will you stay with the girl you’ve been interested in early on? Or do you give in to the crying girl and her feelings so as not to hurt her further?
Because I had already fixated on Yuri early on, I promised Sayori that she would always remain my “best friend.”
And from now on, the game becomes “special.” The following part contains many spoilers. Anyone who clicks to the second page has been warned.
On page 2, the horrid revelations about Doki Doki Literature Club continue.
- 1
- 2
