At this point in time, you might have already heard a couple of things about “Doki Doki Literature Club”. Take note, however, that this recommendation article will be spoiler-free, and I urge any reader to stay unspoiled lest you want to lessen the impact that this super cute game will have on you.
“The Literature Club is full of cute girls! Will you write the way into their hearts?” says the steam description for this free-to-play Visual Novel, and it does not lie. Doki Doki Literature Club (DDLC for short) is a game about an up-and-coming literature club that your peppy childhood friend, Sayori, joined. You get pulled into the club of course, where you meet its three other members: Ḿ̧onika a prim and proper ace student and the president of the club; Natsuki, a feisty girl who holds herself in high regard despite her physical stature; and Yuri, a shy lady with a penchant for horror and psychological fiction. Being a romance visual novel, you’ll get to see the girls slowly fall in love with you based on the choices you make and the poems you write throughout your stay in the club, which brings me to one of the main aspects of the VN.
A big part of DDLC and its romance revolves around poem-writing. The club activity involves each of you sharing poems with each other. Each girl has their own writing style and preferences which you’ll encounter while reading through each path. You’ll also get to “create” your own poem by selecting words from a list.
This will affect which girls will like and dislike your work. The poems themselves are a nice read considering that only one person worked on the writing on the VN. The writer seems to be good enough to create four different poem styles that are starkly different from each other, which is always good to see. There are even a few secret poems that appear from time to time in the game files themselves for those who like hidden ARG-type goodies.
As you progress through the VN, you’ll also discover each of the girls’ personal problems(which I won’t divulge with you due to spoilers) in each of their paths. After playing through all the routes, I found that M͜o͏nika’s seems to be the most interesting one. It might remind others of a certain nitroplus VN that still doesn’t have an official translation today, which is unfortunate. If anything, her route and the rest of DDLC seems to be a tribute to that game, making this a light, free-to-play version of it.
If your heart needs company for this halloween, feel free to drop by our club for a bit! Or maybe stay for a while and listen to a poem or two?
-Monik̢a̵