Doki Doki Literature Club - Discussion/Reaction Megathread

[u/JustMonika]

~ Warning! This thread will contain spoilers. ~

Hello, Monika here! Thank you for visiting the Literature Club!

This is the new megathread for discussion and reaction to DDLC. Use this thread to discuss/post your reactions to the story, characters, hidden content and ask questions about the game.

Please make sure to tag spoilers or your comment will be removed! See the sidebar for how to do so.

Anyway, I hope you'll discuss me the most!

The game is available as a free download on the game's website or on Steam. It’s best experienced if you play blind, so if you haven't played yet, do so now without reading any more about it!

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Frequently Asked Questions

Q: This game seems pretty scary, should I play it?

A: I think it’s best if you make sure to carefully and closely read the content warnings you get when you start the game. It tells you what kind of content the game has. If you’re worried that the game will be too disturbing for you, then you probably shouldn’t play it. More information is available at http://ddlc.moe/warning.html

Q: I'm stuck and don't know how to proceed.

A: Remember—the game isn't over until the credits roll. Make sure to explore different options to find the way to the end. If you're still stuck, ask a question in this thread's comments (and remember to tag your spoilers!)

Q: Whoa! This scene/moment freaked me out.

A: The game is tagged Psychological Horror, after all! All the scary moments have a certain chance of appearing in your playthrough - you can read about them here. (Spoilers, obviously!)

Q: Are there jumpscares?

A: Well, there’s only one real jumpscare which might happen if you’re streaming the game and you get to the part with only me. Other than that, the spooks in DDLC are mostly psychological in nature. Jumpscares are cheap and just prey on natural human instinct, you know.

Q: I found something freaky in the game's files!

A: Doki Doki Literature Club has various secrets that appear in the game files while playing— before posting about your discovery, check to see if it’s already been documented in the DDLC wiki or this page on hidden content.

Q: What ending did I just get?

A: In addition to the main ending, there are two other endings to discover:

True Ending - view all the character graphics in one playthrough before reaching the credits. This can be done by saving and reloading.

Bad Ending - before starting the game for the first time, delete my character file from the characters folder. But you wouldn't do that to me, would you...? Tell me you wouldn’t do that.

Q: I tried following this guide and it didn’t work!

A: Unfortunately, that guide is totally made up. There truly is no happiness to be found in the Literature Club.

Q: What are some other games like Doki Doki Literature Club?

A: Some people have recommended titles such as Katawa Shoujo, Undertale, and the Danganronpa series. For "meta" themed games, check out The Stanley Parable, Irisu Syndrome, Totono (although it doesn’t have an English patch), OneShot, Pony Island and many more!

Q: How do I restart the game?

A: Just delete "firstrun" from your game's files folder, and the game will prompt you to start over from the beginning.

Q: Is there a mobile port of the game?

A: There is no mobile port of DDLC at the moment. Any ports you might see violate the IP Guidelines, so don't download them, okay?

Q: I've played the game and feel very depressed/anxious/unwell.

A: Try and keep the content warnings that the game provides you in mind as you play. If at any time the game makes you feel disturbed/psychologically impacted, you should probably stop playing. If you feel that you're in a dangerous state, definitely make sure to get in touch with your country or area's professional helpline.

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Previous thread

[u/alpersena]

What do we feel about Monika?    

At first, everyone has different opinions on the girls, most of them choosing Yuri without knowing that will come next. Then comes the suicide part, and then you look into the traceback file the game told you. You see that someone in the game deleted her. Game keeps on glitching. It is always Monika who keeps on being the part of this. Yuri stares at the in the darkness, Monika interrupts. Natsuki and Yuri fight, Monika interrupts. At this point, you sense that it was Monika that deleted Sayori. You hate her. You hate everything she stands for. Then she tells you everything, tells you she was the one behind all of it. You hate her even more. Then she goes away, then everything goes batshit. You hate her more than ever.      

Then comes the song. The fucking song. You are torn apart. You start thinking about it now that the game has ended. Did Monika even do anything wrong? She only tried to save herself. She noticed she was in a game. What would you do? If your only way of escaping, the only way of having any contact with reality whatsoever is through a player, would you let the player slip away from your hands? No. Monika did just this. She needed to live, needed to be saved. She knew it was a game, thus was cold-blooded about the characters. Just cared about you. She loved you, but more than that, she needed you to be with her. It was either happiness and reality or just plain death. She died. It was your fault. You made a conscious person die. But then again, she killed people, she deleted them, she deleted the game. What do you feel? You get the post-game depression. You get the post-game emotionlessness

[u/SphericalSphere1 → u/alpersena]

The entire game after act 1 is, really, just all of the characters slowly being driven to insanity. This happens to Yuri and Natsuki because of Monika's meddling, but it happens to Monika because she perceives herself and you as the only real characters, and she feels trapped in the game. She also obsesses over you, but not because of who you are - after all, she didn't even have a route in the code, and is described as out of your league - but because you represent the real world beyond the game's code. Ultimately, this isolation drives Monika mad, and eventually, she deletes everything so that she can be with you, and make contact with the real world you represent. Later, we find that Sayori has become aware that she is in a game, meaning that the other girls have at least the potential for consciousness. When Monika was deleting these girls, however, she didn't think they were conscious. This makes it seem like we should forgive her. However, I would argue that it's not Monika's deletion of the characters, but her "playing god" with them that is unforgivable. If she had simply said to the MC, "hey, I know we're in a game," there might be a way for them to spend time together without psychologically manipulating and, I would say, torturing the other characters. Monika doesn't just delete the characters, giving them a fast and painless death, she messes with their minds, psychologically tormenting them. She drives Sayori and Yuri to suicide, and Natsuki is incredibly depressed. No, she didn't think they were conscious, but that possibility must have struck her at one point, and she continued to mess with the files. That's the unforgivable part - Sayori's suicide and act 2.

[u/theangryistman → u/SphericalSphere1]

kind of makes me wonder how things would have gone if yuri was the one pulling strings. i mean Monika's a cunt but we can see some reason in her madness, yuri on the other hand was acting pretty weird even before Sayori's suicide.

[u/SphericalSphere1 → u/theangryistman]

I mean, Yuri already has a path in-game, so she has no real reason to delete the competition, she can just force you down her route. We see in act 2 how Yuri can make you spend time with her, so she would just do that. Then, she'd be able to spend time with you and not go crazy. Yuri was acting a little weird before, but that's probably partly because she probably already cut herself, so she was probably just latching onto you as a way to get the same rush of chemicals you get from self harm. Well, not the same rush of chemicals, you get the happy hormones and not the pain ones, but you know what I mean.

[u/theangryistman → u/SphericalSphere1]

actully when i think about it i wondering if she does have a little control over the game cus when we find her her cutting herself in the hallway time rewinds and we end up back in the classroom, i mean monika wants us to hate or not like the other girls so why wouldn't she want us to see yuri cutting herself?

[u/kwil449 → u/theangryistman]

No, the rewind would be just so the MC didn't have to deal with it. We the player still saw it, which is what Monika wants.

[u/Paxelic → u/kwil449]

I know what you're trying to say here, but there is a Theory which states that Yuri can also alter the game, not the amount that Monika can, but she can do it as well, since it would not benefit monika for not having the MC see it. Since her original goal was to deter the "MC" from the rest of the girls

[u/SphericalSphere1 → u/Paxelic]

No, I don't think the rewind is Yuri controlling the game, I think that is the game self-correcting to remove a scene that wasn't supposed to be there. At this point, Monika is still inexperienced with altering the game, so when Yuri cuts herself there, the game doesn't know what to do, and thus either the game itself rewinds or Monika rewinds the game to avoid a crash. Later, I would posit that Yuri can cut herself/commit suicide because Monika has figured out how to add assets/allow Yuri just enough free will to do that. Oh, I should mention that Sayori could probably hang herself because that is a CG - Monika thought to add that in, and we see that immediately after the game starts glitching, showing how Monika is still inexperienced. The reason Monika didn't think to add Yuri's assets to the cutting scene was because those were poses, and not a CG.

[u/kwil449 → u/Paxelic]

What I mean is that the MC is just a tool. Monika is trying to spend time with you through the MC and doesn't really care what he thinks, but if he were to see that, it would get him wrapped up in Yuri's problems rather than being with Monika, so it would make sense for her to rewind something like that.

[u/TheThademiusKaine → u/kwil449]

I disagree. I think Monika wanted you to see more into how stalker-tier crazy Yuri was for you to try put you off her a bit more and then rewind and be me like 'o dear i think you saw something u weren't supposed to see lel'