Doki-Doki Literature Club Game Profile
Doki Doki Literature Club!
| Doki Doki Literature Club! | |
|---|---|
 The cover art of Doki Doki Literature Club!, featuring the four main characters (from left to right) Sayori, Yuri, Monika and Natsuki. | |
| Developer(s) | Team Salvato |
| Publisher(s) | Team Salvato |
| Designer(s) | Dan Salvato |
| Programmer(s) | Dan Salvato |
| Artist(s) | Satchely (characters) VelinquenT (backgrounds) |
| Writer(s) | Dan Salvato |
| Composer(s) | Dan Salvato |
| Engine | Ren'Py |
| Platform(s) | |
| Release |
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| Genre(s) | Visual novel |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Doki Doki Literature Club! is a 2017 American freeware visual novel developed by Team Salvato for Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux. The game was initially distributed through itch.io, and later became available on Steam. The story is told from the perspective of a male high school student who joins the school's literature club in an attempt to woo one of its four female members. Doki Doki Literature Club! features a non-traditional plot structure with multiple endings and unlockable cutscenes with each of the main characters. Although this game initially appears to be a lighthearted dating simulator, it is in fact a horror game that extensively breaks the fourth wall.
The game was developed in an estimated two-year period by a team led by Dan Salvato, previously known for his modding work as part of Project M. According to Salvato, the inspiration for the game came from his mixed feelings toward anime and a fascination for surreal and unsettling experiences. Upon its release, Doki Doki Literature Club! received positive critical attention for its successful use of horror elements and unconventional nature within the visual novel genre. The game also inspired internet memes and achieved a large following online.
Gameplay
Doki Doki Literature Club! is a visual novel. As such, its gameplay has a low level of interactivity and consists of scenes with static two-dimensional images of characters in a first-person perspective, accompanied by occasional choices the player is forced to make in order to advance the plot. The descriptions and dialogue are depicted in the form of accompanying text without voice acting. The game's narration is provided by the game's protagonist (whom the player controls), a member of the titular literature club, to which he was invited by his childhood friend Sayori.[1][2][3] Any decisions the player is advocated to make over the course of the plot affect the development of the protagonist's relationships with key female characters Sayori, Yuri, and Natsuki, but ultimately have little effect on the outcome of the game.[4] The characters' interactions with the protagonist are primarily influenced by a minigame in which the player is required to compose a poem from a set of randomly selected individual words. Each girl in the literature club has different word preferences, and will react positively when the player picks a word that they like.[1][2][3][4] The characters' reactions are stylized in the form of miniature chibi avatars of the characters which are displayed at the bottom of the screen during the minigame, and which will jump given the opportunity as a response to the player selecting one of their favorite words;[1] Monika is not able to be romanced in this way, which later affects the plot of the game. Depending on the results of these minigames, the player will experience scenes for whatever character liked that particular poem the most.[3][4] The narrative is divided into three acts and an epilogue, with the game restarting each time.[5] At a certain point, the player must manipulate the game's files in order to advance the narrative.[6]
Plot
The protagonist is invited by his cheerful childhood friend Sayori, to join their high school's literature club as a remedy for his insular nature.[1][2][3] The lead character reluctantly agrees to her proposal and promptly encounters the other members of the club: the assertive Natsuki, the diffident Yuri, and the bubbly club president Monika.[1][3][4][7] After each day passes in the literature club, the club members are prompted to compose a poem which they share with the rest of the club members the following day. Eventually, as the club prepares for the school's upcoming cultural festival in which the characters intend to share their poems with a wider audience, Sayori reveals to the protagonist that she suffers from depression.[8] The protagonist assists either Yuri or Natsuki with their tasks before encountering Sayori again. She professes her love to the protagonist, who can either accept or reject her. The following day, Monika passively shows the protagonist an uncharacteristically morbid poem by Sayori that insistently orders someone to "get out of [her] head". Realizing that something has happened to her, the protagonist rushes to Sayori's home where he discovers that she has hanged herself.[5][8] As the protagonist is overcome with shock, the game suddenly glitches and ends, while the game files reveal that her character has been deleted from the game.
The player is sent back to the main menu, with all previous save files corrupted and eventually deleted.[9] The narrative repeats upon the start of a new game, but Sayori is glaringly absent and the characters do not remember her existence. Monika introduces the protagonist to the club in lieu of Sayori. Events proceed similarly to the previous act, but some text is rendered illegible, the character sprites appear corrupted from time to time and what appear to be computer glitches or bugs become commonplace.[8][10] Aside from the game's frequent distortions, it is revealed through dialogue and unlockable "special poems" that Natsuki is malnourished and being abused by her father, and the normally calm and shy Yuri gradually becomes unstable, possessive, and prone to self-harm.[5] When the planning stage for the cultural festival is reached, a heated quarrel over who the protagonist will help with the festival breaks out. Yuri ejects Monika and Natsuki from the room and privately confesses her love for the protagonist. Whether or not the protagonist accepts Yuri's confession, she commits suicide by repeatedly stabbing herself, after which the protagonist is forced to stay with her and watch her corpse slowly decompose over the course of the weekend as a result of the broken game script.[8] Natsuki returns upon the weekend's conclusion, vomits at the sight of Yuri's body and flees the scene. Monika then appears and apologizes to the protagonist for the "boring" weekend he had spent, compensating by deleting Yuri's and Natsuki's character files from existence and restarting the game.[5]
The protagonist is placed in what remains of the literature club classroom with Monika seated across from him. Monika reveals that she is a self-aware video game character who has the ability to manipulate the game's code. Distraught at the fact she is not a romance option but merely a supporting bystander, she used her ability to amplify the negative traits of her clubmates in a bid to make them unlikable and prevent their confessions of love to the protagonist, only for it to make them more determined. She then confesses her own love not to the protagonist character, but directly to the player, due to them being real and autonomous rather than programmed.[5][8] Monika will sit and talk to the player indefinitely about various topics until the player manually enters the game's directory and deletes Monika's character file. Monika initially lashes out at the player as she disappears, but ultimately forgives them and remorsefully repents by restoring the game and the characters excluding herself.
source:Wikipedia
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