


It’s a combination of me enjoying writing disturbing content, and wanting to demonstrate what the visual novel medium is capable of doing. Its notoriety makes it an easy target for satire, because the satire can be enjoyed both by people who play dating sims, and people who make fun of them. There’s a very enthusiastic subculture of gamers who seek the "fantasy fulfillment" that those kinds of games provide – that is, cute girls (or guys) flirting with you and falling in love with you. What drew you to create this world of sweet teenage romance and bury something sinister within it?įrom the moment of the project’s inception, it was designed as a satire on anime dating sim-style games.

Siliconera had a spoiler-filled talk with Dan Salvato, writer and coder of DDLC, to have a talk about the game’s unexpected change in content, why its true nature was kept hidden, and what effect this kind of game can have on the player in the real world. With only a simple warning of “ This game is not suitable for children or those who are easily disturbed.”, players will be left wondering what’s so off about these innocent teens, only to come to a sinister turn in the free game. Doki Doki Literature Club! ( DDLC) seems to be a cute visual novel about meeting other writing fans in a literature club, only starting to show its true nature over the course of play.
