Doki Doki Literature Club is a psychological horror visual novel currently available for free on Steam. Up until a few years ago, I'd never played a visual novel. It's mainly a Japanese phenomenon and takes a lot of its story-lines and tropes from manga. Many are dating simulators, in which you can pursue different romantic interests. The visual novel is differentiated from a regular video game as they often has little interactivity. Some visual novels have player choice, where you can decide how to progress the story, and some RPG elements. Others have little to no interactivity at all except for clicking the mouse to continue the story.
WARNING, the rest of this post may contain some mild spoilers
Doki Doki Literature Club is an extremely difficult game to review, as much of its impact comes from how it takes the tropes of the visual novel and reverts them, and I don't want to give too many spoilers. It's best to go into the game cold, but honestly if I didn't know it was a horror game I wouldn't have continued playing.
Doki Doki Literature Club is hiding a sinister, psychological horror game inside of what is overtly a cutesy dating simulator. You're the new cute boy who's decided to join the Literature club, which unsurprisingly is full of cute girls, all of whom seem interested in you. There are the usual stereotypes: The old childhood friend, the cheery and bright popular girl, the cutesy girl, and the shy, bookish girl. They've all got the prerequisite bright anime eyes, too-big hair, and cute schoolgirl uniforms.
Doki-Doki (ドキドキ) is Japanese mimetic for the sound of a beating heart. (Similar to "Ba-dump") because quite early on, you decide to stay in the literature club primarily for the ability to pursue your romantic interests. In the literature club, you write poems by selecting words from a list. Depending on the words you use will determine which girls will like your poems more and thus, become more attracted to you. The music is fluffy and light-hearted, the girls are drawn in an anime style and cycle through a few facial expressions, and their flirtatious dialog is extremely silly. Examples include sweating after buttoning a girls jacket after she complains that her breasts have grown too big, and reading the same book so that your elbows touch.
Simple, right?
For the first 40 minutes or so its overt story is saccharine sweet. But Doki Doki Literature Club's sweetness is required to contrast with the sudden and lurching turn it takes about halfway through. It is a story that is about the banality of dating simulators and their pitfalls, and halfway into the game it takes a dark and disturbing turn that not only affects the characters in the game, but also apparently, you as well.
I don't want to say much more, but since the game is currently free I'd recommend checking it out if you're a fan of psychological horror. There are some dark and disturbing images and it's definitely recommended for a more mature audience.
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Stock photo from Pixabay
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