Visual novel games are quite popular in Japan and have been expanding more and more in the West. Most of the time, it consists of winning over a girl through dialogues and choices. In this article, I would like to talk about a novel that became quite popular, especially for breaking clichés, the game Doki Doki Literature Club!
The game is available for free on Steam and has translations into Portuguese on the internet. It was created by Team Salvato and released in September 2017. It is quite difficult to talk about it without giving spoilers, especially since many may have already watched some gameplay on YouTube.
Without wanting to give spoilers, the game became famous for the interaction it has with itself, breaking the fourth wall, and especially for its psychological horror. So much so that on the page and at the beginning of the game, it states that it is not recommended for people who have depression and anxiety problems, due to its highly disturbing content.
Table of Contents
The story of Doki Doki Literature Club!
Doki Doki Literature Club socializes you with a group of 4 lovely girls in a literature club like most dating simulators or visual novels. The game also has an interesting mechanic of composing poems to impress the various girls in the club. Returning to the characters:
- Sayori – Your cheerful, kind, chatty, and clumsy childhood friend;
- Yuri – A shy, mysterious girl who likes to live in the world of books;
- Natsuki – A tsundere girl, insecure, a bit arrogant, but with a cute and soft interior;
- Monika – A beautiful, intelligent, confident, and athletic girl, she is the president of the literature club;
The protagonist is like most visual novel players, who enjoys playing video games and watching anime instead of having a normal social life. He acts straightforwardly with his childhood friend, teases the tsundere, and lets a warm atmosphere develop with Yuri.
Doki Doki Literature Club did not manage to attract people just because of its spectacular twist and breaking of clichés. The game is really well written, with great dialogues that make you like all the characters and the events that happen in the game. If the game weren’t good, it would hardly have made the impact it was created for.
Everything in the game is perfectly placed for you to have immersion in the story. Since the game is free, we recommend just playing it as we do not wish to spoil your gaming experience with spoilers. If you have played or watched Doki Doki Literature Club, we appreciate any comments and sharing.
That part with SPOILER
The game was entirely created using Ren’Py, a free engine for creating novels. I found it amazing that they managed to do all those schemes of deleting game files even using this ready-made engine. The game has mods and translations that can be easily installed by placing the files in the game folder.
The game is divided into 4 acts, where the first is a normal novel for you to interact and empathize with the characters, the second act starts to turn into a psychological horror game with the breaking of the fourth wall, ending with suicides and deaths. In the third act, the game begins to be manipulated by the antagonist of the novel. The fourth act happens after you perform an action in the game files.
There are 2 endings where in one of them the game’s photos and CGs are deleted during the credits and a message from the antagonist appears at the end. In the true ending, the images are not deleted during the credits and a message from the developer appears. These endings can only be reached if you manage to get past act 3 of Doki Doki Literature Club.
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