There, alone in my bedroom, in complete darkness save for the pink-hued glow of my computer screen, I knew I was hooked. The game built up my hopes, encouraging me over and over to make sure I saved before difficult choices, knowing that, when the time came, it would yank the rug right out from under me. I have my strategy of avoiding bad endings down to a science, and I was counting on that to save me-and, of course, Sayori. I’ve logged hundreds of hours of visual novels. It was that the game had tricked me so thoroughly. For me, it was not just the fact that Sayori was gone. It’s difficult to explain what was so disquieting about this moment without playing it yourself. She had completely vanished from the game. Not only was Sayori dead, but there was no getting her back. While the first playthrough began with the protagonist walking to school with Sayori, as he apparently had every day since they were children, this time I was met with a sentence that made my heart drop into my feet: This time, though, something was immediately and chillingly different. The game quit, and restarted from the very beginning, with the protagonist walking to school. However, when I did, I received an error message that the file had been corrupted. So, I pulled up my save file, and prepared to make different choices that might save Sayori’s life. I was no fool of course I had saved my game. As the protagonist agonizes over what he could have done to prevent this, the game ends.Īt this point in my first playthrough, I remembered Monika’s advice to make frequent saves. Sayori has hanged herself, and she is dead. Realizing something is wrong, the protagonist rushes to Sayori’s house, only to find that he is too late. It’s more of a desperate, unhinged scribbling, pleading with some unnamed entity to “get out” of her head. “Poem” might be a bit of a stretch, really. At Literature Club, Monika shows the protagonist a poem by Sayori. Just when you start to think that maybe you somehow downloaded a defanged version of the game, and you’ve been tricked into playing a pleasant-but-dull dating sim about poetry, the tone abruptly shifts. All the while, Monika makes sure to remind you to save your game frequently, just in case you make a choice you regret. The player flirts with the girls (except for Monika, who is not romanceable), writes poems to win their favor, cycles through a routine of club meetings, and walks to and from school with Sayori. The game unfolds fairly normally for about an hour or so. In addition to Sayori, there is the pink-haired tsundere (a character whose tough and abrasive demeanor hides a soft, sweet interior) Natsuki, the soft-spoken Yuri, and the popular club president Monika. There, he is thrilled to discover that (in true romance anime fashion) the club is made up entirely of cute girls. The game begins with a fairly standard slice-of-life scenario: The player, a high school student, joins the school Literature Club at the urging of his chirpy, sweet childhood friend, Sayori. Just a Normal Dating Sim…ĭoki Doki Literature Club is a stealth horror game masquerading as a classic dating sim visual novel, released by Team Salvato in 2017. Once you click through, saccharine music begins to play-so sickly sweet that you could almost forget the portent of doom you just agreed to.
Individuals suffering from anxiety or depression may not have a safe experience playing this game.” Don’t let the candy-coated color scheme, bouncy music, or plot points as contrived and malformed as the spines of the impractically posed anime girls fool you.Īs soon as you boot up Doki Doki Literature Club, you’re met with an ominous disclaimer: “This game is not suitable for children or those who are easily disturbed. Content warning: This article contains references to suicide, as well as major spoilers for Doki Doki Literature Club.įrom the very first screen, it is apparent that Doki Doki Literature Club is no ordinary dating sim.
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