Doki Doki Literature Club! (DDLC) is a visual novel developed by Team Salvato for the PC platform and was later released on the Steam platform which had since shot to popularity with overwhelmingly positive reviews. To be honest, I’ve never been a fan of visual novels and only played one for a little more than five minutes just out of curiosity. Having said that, I’ve heard a lot of buzz on DDLC for the past couple weeks on how it is not what it seems and decided to give it try since it was free on Steam. How can DDLC with it’s seemingly light hearted theme and visual style could belie a disturbing twist.
In case you’re not familiar with Visual Novel games, the basic game play involves interacting with the characters via a selection of conversation choices. The premise usually involves the player(usually a guy) trying to win the heart of one of girls in the game through a series of dialog and mini game sequences. Visually, the game is well drawn like any modern anime character you’d find these days and the light cutesy music adds to the mood of you being in a teenage romance dramedy. Now before we move on to the spoiler review, I’d just like to say that this is not a game for anyone who is easily disturbed. The game, official site and Steam page reminds the player of this fact several times but there is no mention of the game’s actual nature. So if you’re game for some surprise twist, you should probably stop reading now and give the game a try first.
SPOILERS ALERT
So on to the real review! DDLC is actually a psychological horror game with some very dark subject matter dealing with depression and suicide. While the gameplay mechanics largely remain the same with the user selection dialog choices to progress in the game, the characters and game occasionally break the fourth wall. The theme of the game revolves around a high school literature club, so naturally there will be poem or poetry readings and some of these content are rather disturbing or at least hints of some darker elements behind the scene.
You could say that the game itself is a paranormal anomaly. Once you’ve reach the first “milestone”, you quickly realise the game’s twisted gameplay. Your save games gets deleted randomly and some of the characters appear deformed or distorted along with other on-screen artifacts but every other character in the game are not aware of these bizarre changes. Although the game doesn’t feature any jump scares, there are several sequence which will send chills down your spine.
It’s hard to further describe the game without spoiling some of the better moments in the game, but DDLC is certainly a very unique and original entry in the Visual Novel scene. I highly recommend giving this game a try even if you’re not a fan of visual novel games or slightly put off by the cute appearance of the game. The horror in this game is truly original and unique and being free it’s certainly worth a play through. As the adage goes, “Never judge a book by its cover”
Steam – Doki Doki Literature Club!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/698780/Doki_Doki_Literature_Club/
Doki Doki Literature Club
https://ddlc.moe/