A horror game in a dating sim skin. It's hard to tell how good this game is, without spoiling anything. Be careful: This post isn't supposed to be easy to read.
Doki-Doki Literature Club
Is a visual novel about unnamed protagonist (you?) joining the Literature club of your high school with a bunch of girls... Everyday the club members share the poems they write, and they have a good time preparing to the festival. Until something happens!!
It's Free On Steam
The game plays like any other Dating Sim game, you have to make the choices that let you get closer to the girl of your choice, There's also the Poem system where you choose words... The girls also teach you a lot about poems and writing.
But this game has darker take on Dating Sim, every girl notices how close you are with the other girls and they're not happy about that... Oh, did I say that there's a list of girls in the poem creation screen and One Of The Girls Isn't Even On The List!!
This game isn't suitable for children... It's not really terrifying, more on the creepy side. But still a psychological horror game.
DDLC Is Not A Dating Sim
This might be a spoiler but you don't actually chase girls in this game.
This game depends on that it's not the first game you've played... It depends on the habits you acquire as someone who's grown up with the technology. And if you're a dating sims gamer it will use what you know about these games against you.
The game is around 3 hours long. By the middle of it you'll notice that something is wrong and Characters are just off in some way and the game works with that.
It's hard to not spoil that ŸhctilĞ fleʪti ĞÑikÆm siemÆĞeht or that Ëidot Ğniogʪi Şlrigeht fÖËÑo so I gave in and wrote them then coded the ŞpÖilËrʪ in a way you can't read (Yup!! even I will have trouble to decoding this in the future). I just wanted to say that I played this game knowing that it's a horror game (the official site won't tell you that) So I had many expectation and still got out of it with something unexpected.
Or maybe the game wanted you to know there's a horror in it so it can manipulate your mind?
And the ending....
It made me think...
A lot...
A LOt... A lOT... JTSU IKOANM
...
uh.... sorry where I was?
Oh!!
Enjoyable In A Creepy Way
Since the game is about Literature, there's a lot of philosophy and psychology themes in it. It also backs itself up with accurate (if extreme) demonstration with how people with addiction, self-harm and depression think.
I don't want to hype this game so much. I don't think it's the first of its kind. But if it was the first one you'd play with this horror and you're a type of person that it affects then you'll like it. It did its "horror" in a way that was unexpected to me as a player.
I RECommenD IT To
I Recommend It for any person who wants a new type of games, a new horror game. Those who search for the unexpected. Those who play Visual Novels a lot like myself. Or people who found the Cr4zy way this post written in interesting (I just felt I had to write it This way for as a review for this game).
But I don't recommend it for people who aren't interested in what I wrote about it. I don't think this game is supposed to be easy to understand.
If you liked this game you might like Ambre... another free game with similar play. Though while both are psychological games DDLC is way more dark in the theme and execution.
What do You Think?
I tried to make this post as spoiler free as possible (More than the post in my meme account 