![]() Unlike the original 2017 release, Plus! is a premium game. ![]() It received generally positive reviews, with praise for its side stories and gameplay on consoles, but some criticism for its lack of changes. A macOS version of the game was later released on August 12, 2021. The game also inspired various internet memes and achieved a large online following.Īn expanded version of the game, Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!, was released for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on June 30, 2021. 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. According to Salvato, the inspiration for the game came from his mixed feelings toward anime and a fascination for surreal and unsettling experiences. 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. Although the game initially appears to be a lighthearted dating simulator, it is in fact a metafictional psychological horror game that extensively breaks the fourth wall. Doki Doki Literature Club! features a non-traditional plot structure with multiple endings and unlockable cutscenes with each of the main characters. The story is told from the perspective of a high school student who reluctantly joins the school's literature club on the insistence of his childhood best friend, and is given the option to romantically pursue three of its four female members. The game was initially distributed through itch.io, and later became available on Steam. The new edition also brings new music tracks, unlockables and apparently visual enhancements, though I don’t know how much of a selling point that is for a game like Doki Doki.Doki Doki Literature Club! ( DDLC) is a 2017 freeware visual novel developed by American independent game studio Team Salvato for Linux, macOS, and Windows. Regardless, these episodes do a good job of humanising these characters and for fans of Doki Doki since 2017, it’s nice to have new narrative content, four years later. While they’re all well-written, fun and heart-warming stories, they’re probably skippable if you were drawn to Doki Doki because of its horror roots. The six episodes are also decidedly less sinister than the base game and present a purely wholesome narrative with the four Doki girls. These episodes mainly focus on the formation of the literature club before your entry, so there’ll be no interaction with the player and no poetry mini-games. They are entirely separate and unlockable through pursuing different romance options in the main story. Plus adds six new story episodes set before the events of the base game. This brings me to what’s new in the Plus! edition of Doki Doki Literature Club. It also helps that the game is full of trigger warnings from the very beginning to warn players that may be sensitive to certain subject matters. Both subjects are commented on by the end of Doki Doki’s plot. It uses disturbing subject matter around mental health and uncomfortable scenarios with the four girls to further its story. However, by the end of the game I came to realise that Doki Doki was never intended to be a story about mental health. The first half of Doki Doki had me raising an eyebrow at the game’s questionable depictions of serious mental health issues, as well as the voyeuristic representations of its four characters. This makes it hard for me to recommend Doki Doki to people that aren’t already fans of the genre, especially when the base game is free on Steam.Īfter a while things take a sinister turn and Doki Doki slowly descends down a hellish fever dream. The girls suggest writing poetry as a club activity and this leads to the one of the only forms of interactivity in the game.Īside from making a few choices elsewhere in the game and solving one very light puzzle, most of your playtime consists of just pressing A to read through dialogue. There’s some unspoken tension at the arrival of a new member since it seems all the girls want some of your attention, but everything is presented in a light-hearted, friendly manner. ![]() So, you reluctantly join and everything is pretty innocent. Your childhood friend, Sayori, pressures you into joining the newly formed Literature Club with three other girls. ![]() This character is really just supposed to be a stand-in for you. You play as an average schoolboy who is into anime and video games and isn’t really interested in anything else. It is definitely a narrative you would not be able to reproduce outside of gaming. It uses its medium to mess with the player and tell its story in a similar way to Nier: Automata or MGS2. And it’s a story that can only be told in the format of a video game. Doki Doki Literature Club is a wild, subversive, smart horror game masquerading as a cute dating sim.
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