External Links

Download on itch.io
Defaults - All Systems Application

Have you played this game?

You can rate this game, record that you've played it, or put it on your wish list after you log in.

Playlists and Wishlists

RSS Feeds

New member reviews
Updates to external links
All updates to this page

Doki Doki Literature Club

by Team Salvato

Horror, Romance
2017

Web Site

(based on 18 ratings)
1 review

About the Story

Hi, Monika here!

Welcome to the Literature Club! It's always been a dream of mine to make something special out of the things I love. Now that you're a club member, you can help me make that dream come true in this cute game!

Every day is full of chit-chat and fun activities with all of my adorable and unique club members:

Sayori, the youthful bundle of sunshine who values happiness the most;
Natsuki, the deceivingly cute girl who packs an assertive punch;
Yuri, the timid and mysterious one who finds comfort in the world of books;
...And, of course, Monika, the leader of the club! That's me!

I'm super excited for you to make friends with everyone and help the Literature Club become a more intimate place for all my members. But I can tell already that you're a sweetheart—will you promise to spend the most time with me? ♥


Game Details

Tags

- View the most common tags (What's a tag?)

(Log in to add your own tags)
Tags you added are shown below with checkmarks. To remove one of your tags, simply un-check it.

Enter new tags here (use commas to separate tags):

Member Reviews

5 star:
(7)
4 star:
(5)
3 star:
(4)
2 star:
(2)
1 star:
(0)
Average Rating:
Number of Reviews: 1
Write a review


3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Subverting visual novel conventions with a dark story, September 1, 2018
by verityvirtue (London)
Related reviews: choleric

[Content warning: depicted violence, suicide.]

In Doki Doki Literature Club (DDLC), you’re invited to join your neighbour’s tiny after school club, the literature club. Even though your only exposure to literature is reading manga, the club members themselves are each compelling in their own way.

Much has been written about this game, by people who are much more familiar with visual novels than I am, so I won’t feign familiarity with the conventions of the visual novel genre. But judging from this game alone, it seems that visual novels, like parser games, are good at signalling inevitability. Unlike parser games, they can do this with long stretches of dialogue-heavy storytelling without any choices. DDLC uses this to its advantage, using its episodic format to set patterns and break them.

This game is deliberately vague in its advertising about its content warnings, since those are spoilers in themselves. These are big heavy subjects that the game mentions, though, and it’s mostly used as plot point rather than being discussed.

Some gripes, then. Some of the story elements didn’t feel gelled together. In particular the poetry-writing felt like a flimsy justification for the premise. Additionally, the way this story handles mental illness is pretty superficial - more plot point than anything else. This attitude is endemic in horror fiction in general. We can do better.

DDLC is probably more worth playing for seeing how the visual novel format can be subverted than for its actual storyline, and for its questioning of the divide between player-character and player. It displays some clever tricks, but tends to use violence and mental illness as a shock tactic. Lynnea Glasser’s Creatures Such as We also explores such metatextual issues, but far more thoughtfully.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

Doki Doki Literature Club on IFDB

Recommended Lists

Doki Doki Literature Club appears in the following Recommended Lists:

Nontraditional Parser, Gamebook, IF and Systems by thecanvasrose
This list is based on a poll you can add votes to. I will update the list from time to time to reflect what's on the poll as I play the elected games and can write snippets about them. See here: https://ifdb.org/poll?id=9xs5adb1gvesf3tk...

Polls

The following polls include votes for Doki Doki Literature Club:

For your consideration: XYZZY-eligible Best Games of 2017 by MathBrush
This is for suggesting games released in 2017 which you think might be worth considering for Best Game in the XYZZY awards. This is not a zeroth-round nomination. The category will still be text-entry, and games not mentioned here will...

For your consideration: XYZZY-eligible individual NPCs of 2017 by MathBrush
This is for suggesting games released in 2017 which you think might be worth considering for Best Individual NPC in the XYZZY awards. This is not a zeroth-round nomination. The category will still be text-entry, and games not mentioned...

Nontradiational Parser, Gamebook, IF and Systems by thecanvasrose
I'm making a list based on this poll as I play the elected games and can write snippets about them. See here: https://ifdb.org/viewlist?id=3n6rheokfkcsntf - - - - - - - - - I'm looking for games which are: 》Neither parser nor gamebook...

See all polls with votes for this game




This is version 4 of this page, edited by lunaterra on 10 May 2019 at 5:17pm. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item - Delete This Page