Doki Doki Literature Club

The characters can notice what is wrong with "eachother"...that's not really much to go on.

A lot of people just seem to conclude that Sayori's "survival instinct" kicked in when hanging...which I mean is a muddy thing.

The fact that Monika's goal was to make the player hate the other girls couple with how she went about it leads me to believe that she has a really bad understanding of the human psyche.

the fact that Monika asks you to save everyone trapped in DDLC from future games Salvato makes also means that after the game ends she realizes that everyone in the game is real, not just her, and she regrets putting everyone through everything.

Arin: What's wrong?
Dan: What do you mean 'What's wrong'?! I just realized we're fucking playing PT when I thought we were playing Sakura Spirit!

edited 22nd Dec '17 10:31:18 AM by sgamer82

Ah, that actually gives me another reason to not watch their playthrough: it reminds me that my impression has been that they don't actually enjoy horror games, and I don't really like watching people play something that they dislike.

@darkabomination: Speaking only for myself (and not against your feelings), I'll admit that I do feel a lot of sympathy for Monika, while still recognising that she did some truly horrifying things. (One doesn't preclude the other, for me.) I can see at least some of where she was coming from, I think, and feel sorry for her, even if I very much disagree with some of her conclusions and would want to stand in the way of many of her actions.

Regarding the "get out of my head" poem, I read that as being addressed to the player-character: towards the end of the poem, she refers to "doing what she said" (or something similar), which I take to refer to Monika. So instead of Monika's meddling, I take the poem as being about her trying to stop thinking about the protagonist romantically, which she has elsewhere said causes her pain, if I recall correctly.

To be fair, Arin never told him it was a horror game to begin with. Im not sure if Dan hates horror as much as he's suprised by the genre shift.

Ah, sorry, I should perhaps have clarified: I'm going off of previous Let's Plays of horror games that they've done, not the reaction above. That reaction simply reminded me of those past experiences.

Still thinking Ross and Barry would have done this justice. They behave a lot better around serious games.

From what I heard Barry isn't even in Game Grumps anymore, sadly...

edited 23rd Dec '17 7:47:54 AM by Luminosity

Yeah, the announcement came within the last day or so that he's moving on to other personal projects. Not sure about Ross's status with the group, either, since he hasn't been active a lot, lately.

As far as I know, Arin hasn't had an issue with horror games, though Dan does. He refers to P.T. and the game did indeed freak him out. That said, the episode did end with Dan himself wanting to continue for at least one more episode (on a playthrough they had been marathonning to get to that point)

edited 23rd Dec '17 7:55:52 AM by sgamer82

Speaking of Let's Players playing this game, now it's Markiplier's turn.

Ross is still a part of the company, but has stated that he no longer wants to do regular Let's Plays and instead will be focusing on his animation and the occasional odd special.

Ross and Barry might be interesting to watch, indeed. ^_^

Offhand, I seem to recall them being rather displeased when playing Resident Evil 7 (I think that it was). Still, the fact that Dan pressed to keep going is somewhat encouraging.

I haven't started it yet, but I intend to do so soon! His should be interesting, especially given that he's somewhat similar to Jesse Cox in his tendency towards theorising as the plot goes on. ^_^

[edit] ... This is off-topic, but looking at those arrows in my post here, has anyone yet thought to make an up-arrow Christmas tree? Surely someone has!

edited 23rd Dec '17 10:59:48 AM by ArsThaumaturgis

i deleted Monika. The extent of my interaction with this flavor of game is Staley Parable and that's it, so solving that little puzzle was super fun. This whole game's been a wild rabbit hole, it's great.

because I'm an asshole, though, i kinda ruined the magic for myself? I tried putting Monika's character file back into the characters folder, but the game didn't respond to that. it's a cruel limit that, yeah, there's boundaries to this like any other game, but I still had a great, horrifying time.

Is there any point pressing on, or does the game become a normal visual novel?

edited 23rd Dec '17 10:18:41 PM by mrsunshinesprinkles

If you haven't gone back into the game since deleting Monika, there's at least one more twist waiting for you.

Noted. I'll try it maybe tomorrow.

what I like about this game is that it didn't rest on its laurels, and rely solely on the shock. The fourth-wall breaks, the craziness was in the service of an incredibly tragic character arc. You really feel for Monika, even after everything's transpired; she lives every day in her life trapped in the knowledge that everything around her isn't real. At the same time, it also didn't disparage the idea of visual novels, and dating sims, despite being a fucked up version of one. Just wanting to play a cute dating sim is still plenty valid, and part of Monika's face turn is her acknowledging this.

So I saw this comparison being made on Game Theory live stream, and not sure if this has been pointed out before, but has anyone else noticed the similarities between this game and Portal? Monika to GLaDOS, Sayori to Wheatley, the song at the end, etc. Also, Sayori now speaks with an annoying Cockney accent in my head.

Makes the Game Grumps giving Monika a robot voice funnier.

Monikia: This. Sentence. Is. False! Don'tthinkaboutitdon'tthinkaboutitdon'tthinkaboutit.
Sayori: Um... True. I say true.

Well this was a fun video, though it makes more sense if you actually watched the Undertale one first. But I do like the points he brings up. Plus I think it has some of his best editting.

Monika is a Remnant of Despair.

All these Undertale comparisons kinda make me wish I hadn't given up on the game.

Since it's on-topic, I found this last week or so:

It's about how both Undertale and Doki Doki Literature Club have a Crapsaccharine World type thing going on, where there are horror elements hidden underneath the cutesy. One difference they note, for example, is that Undertale potentially gives it away early and otherwise makes it clear there's more than meets the eye, while Doki Doki goes all in and keeps the facade going until the moment of reveal.

Quick off-topic post: I've never seen western artists nail the visual novel character design style as well as they did here.

Edit: Also, only DDLC has a Crapsaccharine World. Undertale's world is realistically flawed, but besides that, it's a nice place. Aside from the fact that they're trapped under a mountain, I mean.

edited 25th Dec '17 1:58:52 AM by Wheezy

Huh? Undertale is entirely in a Crapsaccharine World. Did you play through the true ending? Or read the bits where Asgore killed six other kids, or that their entire society is living on a lie that Asgore had told the people?

I mostly used the term as a bit of a catch-all in any case - a seemingly nice, if imperfect world with dark elements hidden within. Elements that, outside of Flowey, may not be obvious until about Waterfall or Hotland or so. One of the big twists is the true meaning of "EXP" and "LV" not being what you'd expect.

Both are true to an extent, but TBH, their casualty rates are still much better than Real Life.

edited 25th Dec '17 8:51:03 PM by Wheezy