Doki Doki Literature Club!

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Doki Doki Literature Club!
Studio United StatesUnited States Team Salvato
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 world 22nd September 2017
platform Windows , Mac OS , Linux
Game engine Ren'Py
genre Visual Novel , Dating Simulator , Psychological Horror
Game mode Single player
control Mouse , keyboard
system advantages
preconditions		 Processor 1.8 GHz, 4 GB Ram, Windows 7 , 350 MB free space
medium Download , Steam
language English

Doki Doki Literature Club! is a visual novel that was developed by the development team Team Salvato and was released in September 2017 for Windows , macOS and Linux . A release on Steam followed a month later.

development

Overall, the development of the visual novel by Team Salvato, led by Dan Salvato, took almost two years. Doki Doki Literature Club! represents his first full-fledged video game. He had previously appeared in the modding scene and became known through the Twitch.tv extension FrankerFaceZ , as well as his mods for Super Smash Bros. and the creation of various levels at Super Mario Maker .

As inspiration for the development of the game, Salvato cited his ambivalent attitude towards anime , as well as his fascination for surreal and unsettling experiences. About the use of horror elements, Salvato said that it was influenced by "scary things" because they "oppress the player, not because they push scary-looking things in the face."

The game was first published on September 22, 2017 on Itch.io for Windows , Mac OS and Linux as a freeware game; a month later it was published on the online platform Steam . At Itch.io there is also the possibility of Doki Doki Literature Club! the so-much-you-want-payment principle to buy, and buyers who are at least 10 US dollars , pay, additional content such as desktop and mobile wallpaper, the official gaming soundtrack received and a digital concept art book.

Doki Doki Literature Club has not been checked by the entertainment software self-regulation (USK), however, when the game is started, a warning is displayed in which an urgent warning is given before playing the game. It states that the game is not suitable for players who are easily disturbed, who suffer from depression or anxiety disorders due to the storyline. In addition, the player must be at least 13 years old.

Due to the fact that the game is very popular and various illegal ports have been published to the game, the developers prohibited the use of elements of the game, as well as the development of fan games. However, the developers announced that Doki Doki Literature Club! in the future it could also be playable as a mobile game for the Android and iOS operating systems .

Gameplay

Doki Doki Literature Club! is a visual novel . The main component is reading the dialogues between characters and a linear storyline. From time to time there are mini-games; writing poetry in this game . In this game the player sees isolated words and the non-player characters (NPC) as chibis on the screen. Every NPC has a preference for certain words, which the respective NPC shows by jumping. In addition, the player must make various decisions in the course of the visual novel that influence the further course of the plot. By writing the poems, the player has the opportunity to unlock additional scenes for each NPC.

At first glance, Doki Doki Literature Club appears! like a dating simulator ; however, the game is a psychological horror game that often breaks the fourth wall .

Characters

  • Sayori

Sayori is the main character's best friend; both have known each other since early childhood. At first glance, Sayori appears to be a happy girl; however, while preparing for the school festival, she reveals that the player is suffering from depression and confesses her love to the player. Your written poems are bittersweet.

  • Natsuki

Natsuki is a first year student and part of the literature club. She is a gifted baker and regularly supplies the members of the club with homemade cupcakes . She enjoys reading manga in her spare time . On the outside, Natsuki seems tough, but on the inside she is easy to impress. In Japan such characters are known as Tsundere .

  • Yuri

Yuri is introverted and easy to embarrass. She enjoys writing poetry and reading sophisticated literature. For her character untypical she has a penchant for horror fiction .

  • Monika

Monika is the president of the literature club. She is the most popular and talented student at the school. She is described as athletic. Although she could have joined any school club, she preferred to start the Literature Club since reading and writing are her greatest hobbies. The previous school year she was in the same class as the protagonist of the game.

action

The protagonist is invited by his childhood friend Sayori to join the school's literature club, of which she is a member. He gets to know the other members of the club: Yuri, Natsuki and the president of the club, Monika. The protagonist begins to participate in club activities (such as writing and reading poetry) and to build stronger relationships with all members.

During the preparations for the upcoming school festival, Sayori confesses to the protagonist that he suffers from depression and has fallen in love with him. As the day of the school festival approaches, Sayori's actually bittersweet poems are replaced by dark and morbid notes asking someone to leave their thoughts. After she doesn't respond to the protagonist's text messages, the protagonist decides to leave the club meeting and runs to Sayori's house, where he finds Sayori's hanged body. The game then begins to glitch and ends abruptly, while the protagonist ponders whether he or the rest of the club could have saved them.

The player is returned to the main menu, with all stored data being deleted. The game starts as usual, but Sayori's conversations are replaced by illegible text. The game slips again and starts again. Sayori is no longer present and all references to her have either been completely deleted or replaced with slicked versions of her character. Now, instead of Sayori, Monika invites the protagonist to the literature club. Unsettling scenarios begin: the game begins to rewind when the protagist sees Yuri injuring himself and does not allow any dialogue options that Monika does not like. Shortly before the festival, Yuri hands the protagonist a poem with illegible writing, blood splatters and a yellow splatter. She confesses her love to the protagonist and begins to kill herself with several knife stabs . The protagonist spends the weekend with Yuri's corpse. When Natsuki finds the protagonist and the lifeless body at school on Monday, she vomits and escapes from school. Then Monika appears, apologizes and deletes Yuri and Natsuki's data, which leads to the game restarting again.

After the player has restarted the game, the protagonist finds himself in a room with Monika. She explains that she is aware of being a character in a video game and that she is able to change, manipulate or even delete the data of the other characters. She confesses to the protagonist that she made Sayori more and more depressed and that she strengthened Yuri's obsessive character in order to make her unpopular for the player, so that he focuses more on Monika. She then confesses her love to the player of the game - not the character being played. Monika will talk to the player about various topics until the player decides to manually remove her file from the game. If he does this, the game slips again and Monika begins to panic because she has been removed from the game world. She hits the player because he murdered her, but after a while she confesses her love to him again and shows remorse for her actions. Then Monika restores the other girls' data and deletes herself from the game.

The game starts again, this time all characters are alive. The course of action is almost the same again. Shortly after meeting everyone, Sayori tells the player that she is now the club president and that she knows everything about the game and what happened to Monika and that she intends to live with the player forever. Then Monika intervenes again (this time via the text prompt) and deletes Sayori because of the threat to the player. Monika speaks to the player and sings the song Your Reality to him while the credits run through and the game destroys itself more and more. After the credits have run through, the player receives a note from Monika stating that she has left the literature club because there was no luck in it. In order to be able to play the game again, it must either be reinstalled or a hard reset must be carried out.

The player reaches an alternative ending if he manages to reach all scenes before Sayori commits her suicide . For this, multiple saving and loading of the scores at various points is necessary. In this alternative ending, Sayori does not commit suicide, but instead admits her natural reality and tearfully thanks the player for trying to make all members of the literature club happy. She says goodbye and hopes to see the player again at some point. After the credits, the player will receive a thank you note from developer Dan Salvato. In this case, the data of all four girls will be retained after the game world has been deleted.

Review and success

Doki Doki Literature Club! received a rating of 81 percent on Metacritic based on five English-language reviews.

The game was recognized for its metaphorical and horror elements; the online magazine PC Gamer called Doki Doki Literature Club! as one of the most surprising games of the year.

After the game was released, a rapidly growing cult of the visual novel formed. Gitta Jackson from Kotaku , the visual novel called "a very special game," adding that people who horror that gets under your skin, prefer, the game should play. Tom Philip from GQ wrote that Doki Doki Literature Club! "One of the scariest games he'd ever played." He also praised the dialogue, which Philip said had "one of the wickedest and most inventive narrative techniques," with the occasional click through endless silly and flirty conversations about poetry as drudgery designated.

In the first three months of its launch, the game was downloaded more than a million times, hitting the two million mark a quarter of a year after the game was released. At the IGN Best of 2017 Awards , the game won the “People's Choice Award” in the categories of Best PC Game , Best Adventure Game , Best Story and Most Innovative . EGMNow listed Doki Doki Literature Club! in 16th place of the 25 best games of 2017.

Even the Germany radio became aware of the game and dedicated the game a podcast . The website described the game as a much-discussed internet phenomenon . Mattias Grimm from Gameswelt is reminded of the film Audition by Takashi Miike . However, according to Grimm, Doki Doki Literature Club! Not a horror game in the classic sense, but revolves around the subjects of depression , death longing and obsession and represents, on a meta level, a radical reckoning of all naive teenage romances in this genre. "Marina Hänsel from Gamona describes Doki Doki Literature Club! as a "wolf in sheep's clothing" and describes it as the most original game in a long time. It describes the topics of depression, self-harming behavior and “a kind of cyber stalking , because it cuts itself into its own program files”. She calls the game a pearl in video game history.

In the 2018 conferred SXSW Gaming Awards as part of SXSW was Doki Doki Literature Club! in the Trending Game of the Year category and nominated for the Matthew Crump Cultural Innovation Award . The game won the latter award. At the Game Developers Choice Awards , a nomination in the category Best Game Debut was missed, but it was praised by the specialist committee.

In other media

The YouTube metal music project RiffShop released the song Doki Doki Metal Club , which is based on the game. The Webvideoproduzent NateWantsToBattle devoted himself in song the main character Monika, and also in the Musical - web series Random Encounters the plot of the game was picked up in a short musical.

The game developer YandereDev built in an Easter Egg in its game Yandere Simulator , which is still in development , which Ayano Aishi makes to look like the female characters Sayori, Natsuki, Yuri or Monika.

In the meantime, the game has become very popular in the modding scene. The disturbing story was cited as one reason, but also its openness, so that the programmers' imagination is hardly shown any limits. An RPG maker fan game Doki Doki Literature Club! the RPG was released at the end of January 2018 and is a kind of spin-off.

Just Monika became an internet phenomenon in the gaming scene.

Awards and nominations

  • Steam Awards
    • 2017: Difficult to describe (nominated)
  • SXSW Gaming Awards
    • 2018: Matthew Crump Cultural Innovation Award ( won )
    • 2018: Trending Game of the Year (nominated)

Controversy

In Bury , UK , a 15-year-old teenager committed suicide in February 2018. Before that he should be Doki Doki Literature Club! have played and have received messages from the characters on their mobile phones. In fact, there are no official apps for mobile devices, the game was only released for PC and Mac. Based on this mistake, the city council urged parents to inform their children before playing Doki Doki Literature Club! to warn. Teachers at Hetton Primary School, which the student attended, also warned parents about the video game. Due to the error, the game was picked up in a television interview by BBC News , the British Daily Mirror and the Daily Telegraph . At the beginning of the game, there was always a warning that the game is not suitable for people suffering from depression or anxiety disorders. A warning will also appear on the game's official website and on Steam. In addition, when starting the game for the first time, the player must confirm that he is at least 13 years old and is made aware that a list of questionable content can be found on the homepage.

In addition, extremists already used DDLC for memes.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Gita Jackson: Doki Doki Literature Club's Horror Was Born From A Love-Hate Relationship With Anime . Kotaku . October 20, 2017. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
  2. ↑ Owen Good: Powerful mod adds replay feature to Super Smash Bros. Melee . Polygon. September 13, 2015. Retrieved October 18, 2017.
  3. ^ Louise Blain: P is for Pain is the new contender for Mario Maker's hardest level . Games radar. October 9, 2015. Retrieved October 18, 2017.
  4. ↑ Eversion-Inspired Super Mario Maker Level Uses Doors In An Ingenious Way . Silliconera. September 21, 2017. Retrieved October 18, 2017.
  5. ↑ Doki Doki Literature Club! on Steam . Valve Corporation . Retrieved October 18, 2017.
  6. ↑ Doki Doki Literature Club Fan Pack on Steam . Valve Corporation . Retrieved October 18, 2017.
  7. ↑ David Molke: Gamepro : Doki Doki Literature Club! - Cute psychological horror hit may soon be officially available for iOS & Android
  8. ↑ Jordan Sirani: IGN Entertainment : DOKI DOKI LITERATURE CLUB MAY GET A MOBILE VERSION
  9. ↑ Victoria Rose: Doki Doki Literature Club is an uncontrollably horrific visual novel . Polygon . October 22, 2017. Retrieved October 22, 2017.
  10. ↑ Amy Josuweit: Doki Doki Literature Club is a hidden horror game for the internet age . Rock, paper, shotgun . October 31, 2017. Accessed October 31, 2017.
  11. ↑ Metacritic : Doki Doki Literature Club!
  12. ↑ Steven Wright: Doki Doki Literature Club! hides a gruesome horror game under its cute surface . PC gamer . October 26, 2017. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  13. ↑ a b Tom Philip: Doki Doki Literature Club Is the Most Messed Up Horror Game You'll Play This Year . GQ . October 19, 2017. Retrieved October 19, 2017.
  14. ↑ Gita Jackson: Doki Doki Literature Club Scared Me Shitless . Kotaku . October 11, 2017. Retrieved October 18, 2017.
  15. ↑ Brian Barnett: Doki Doki Literature Club Hits 1 Million Downloads . IGN Entertainment . December 11, 2017. Retrieved December 16, 2017.
  16. ^ Ali Jones: Doki Doki Literature Club! surpasses two million downloads . In: PCGamesN . January 15, 2018. Retrieved January 15, 2018.
  17. ↑ Best of 2017 Awards: Best PC Game . IGN. December 20, 2017. Retrieved January 2, 2018.
  18. ↑ Best of 2017 Awards: Best Adventure Game . IGN. December 20, 2017. Retrieved January 2, 2018.
  19. ↑ Best of 2017 Awards: Best Story . IGN. December 20, 2017. Retrieved January 2, 2018.
  20. ↑ Best of 2017 Awards: Most Innovative . IGN. December 20, 2017. Retrieved January 2, 2018.
  21. ↑ EGM staff: EGM's Best of 2017: Part Two: # 20 ~ # 16 . EGMNow . December 28, 2017. Archived from the original on June 12, 2018. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved January 14, 2018. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.egmnow.com
  22. ^ Christian Schiffer, Christoph Reimann: Deutschlandfunk : "Doki Doki Literature Club!" - The mysterious game hype of the hour
  23. ↑ Matthias Grimm: Gamesworld : DOKI DOKI LITERATURE CLUB !: The most disturbing game of the year: You MUST play that!
  24. ↑ Marina Hansel: Gamona : Doki Doki Literature Club! - Test: The most unsettling game of 2017 (DOKI DOKI!)
  25. ↑ Andrew McNeill: South by Southwest : Here Are Your 2018 SXSW Gaming Awards Finalists!
  26. ↑ IGN Studios: IGN Entertainment : "2018 SXSW Gaming Awards Winners Revealed"
  27. ↑ Michael McWerthor: Polygon : Zelda, Horizon lead 2018 Game Developers Choice Award nominees
  28. ↑ Maximilian Stulle: Doki Doki is so disturbing that fans are working on happy mods. Spieletipps.de , January 25, 2018, accessed June 29, 2018 .
  29. ↑ ProfessorHerb: Reddit : The DDLC RPG is Done
  30. ^ Ana Valens: Doki Doki Literature Club's 'Just Monika' is taking over the internet. Dot Esports, February 18, 2018, accessed June 29, 2018 .
  31. ↑ Amie Gordon: Father Believes death of his son, 15, is linked to 'psychological horror game' Doki Doki Literature Club as coroner issues warning over self-harming, suicide and violent scenes. June 26, 2018, accessed July 6, 2018 .
  32. ↑ Paul Britton and Sam Yarwood: A 15-year-old boy was found dead. Now his dad, and a coroner, have warned about the 'horror' online game he was playing. June 26, 2018, accessed July 6, 2018 .
  33. ↑ Regarding DDLC on mobile devices Information from the lead developer, December 12, 2017 (English)
  34. ↑ BBC news - Doki Doki. Dailymotion , June 28, 2018, accessed June 29, 2018 .
  35. ↑ Andy Robertson: Don't let your child play Doki Doki Literature Club before reading this. Mirror Online , June 28, 2018; accessed June 29, 2018 .
  36. ↑ Margi Murphy: What is Doki Doki Literature Club, the 'dark' game linked to a teenager's death? Telegraph Online , June 28, 2018, accessed June 29, 2018 .
  37. ↑ Christian Huberts: Mein Dampf: The right-wing extremist parallel world on the games platform Steam. Der Standard , June 26, 2018, accessed June 29, 2018 . , also to be read in issue 13 of WASD , reading sample
  38. ^ Doki Doki Communist Party. reddit , accessed August 14, 2018 .