DDLC: Gaming, emotion and fanart – the rollercoaster that is the Doki Doki Literature Club

DISCLAIMER: The post contains SPOILERS for the game Doki Doki Literature Club

My first encounter with the DDLC – aka the Doki Doki Literature Club – was about two weeks ago, when my younger brother introduced me to it. A visual novel, he told me, so I decided to check it out.
I don't know if I should be glad I did. It's a tragic story.

It all starts in a lovely manner – your sweet best friend, Sayori, wants you to join a club at school and invites you to hers – the Literature Club. There, you meet three wonderful girls: Yuri, Natsuki and Monika.

There's a lot of story to the game and not much to do for you, just sit back and read. However, it keeps you entertained and watching every scene. At the end of each day, you must pick twenty words from a given list, for a poem for the next day. Each word appeals to a certain girl, so this is where your choice is: do you pick bittersweet words to impress your best friend Sayori, cutesy ones to impress Natsuki or smart, dark stuff that pleases Yuri? Whatever you choose, the game ends in tragedy.

Throughout the story, you can't help but develop a soft spot for your best friend, Sayori, who is the sweetest, most adorable girl in the world (okay, I'm fangirling). You might even fall in love. I'm not that big on games, but even I loved her. But then, one day, she begins acting strange towards you...and when you confront her about it, she reveals she suffers from crippling depression. Despite your assurance that you love her, she goes and hangs herself in her room, leaving you heartbroken.
I cried here, so fair warning. I still have an uneasy feeling, writing this. Both I and my brother were shocked and in pain. What a horrible game, I thought.

And it is, in a way. It's heartwrenching and after that, it's not a fun game at all. But maybe that's not the point. Because life isn't always fun, either. And I suppose this sort of thing happens. What I enjoyed about this game was that it plays a lot on your empathy.
Let's face it, it takes a huge toll on your feelings, but a great thing is that it draws on them and pushes you to feel.
And after all, isn't that what TV shows or books do? The great ones are great because they connect to us emotionally.
So, from that POV, it's a great game.

The Twisted Story

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It's revealed later on – or on Youtube, if you've watched spoilers – that the real villain of the game is Monika, the President of the DDLC. She tells you, much later, that she has realized she is only a fictional character, a lie. That she is programmed to act a certain way and so are all her friends. She then escapes the game, somehow, and infiltrates the game files, where she alters the other character's sliders. So see, Sayori wasn't always depressed and wouldn't have killed herself, were it not for Monika, who screwed with her feelings. She does this to the other girls, who also begin to act funny.
But she doesn't destroy the game and cause the deaths of the other girls strictly out of malice. Or at least, not towards you. It's rather a hate towards the makers of the game, who trapped her in this world.
It also turns out, toward the end, that Monika is in love with your character and wants you all to herself.

The Good Ending

Once you've recovered from the pain of Sayori's death, you can start again and work towards the good ending, which is what we did. I must admit, it spread out across two days, but it was worth it, in the end.
This is achieved by playing the game, saving at the first poem. First, do the Sayori route. Always picking words that appeal to her and picking her whenever you're given a choice. Play the game until you're given the choice between saying 'I love you' and 'You're my dearest friend'. Tell her you love her. A picture of Sayori hugging you then appears and after that, save your game, but don't overwrite the first save (the first poem).

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Then load the poem save again, doing the Natsuki route, picking her and her words. Save after her third picture disappears. Then, do the same for Yuri. And this time, witness Sayori's death.
Play the game again, not doing any particular route. After witnessing Yuri's death and being taken to a room with just Monika, delete her (Monika) from the game. Start again and this time, you will get the good ending. If you don't go down all the routes and see the 3 pictures for each girl, you get the bad ending.

It's a lot of work, but totally worth it.

The FanART

After playing this game, I was still hooked on it and in love with the characters – especially Sayori and decided to draw her. I've always liked drawing, but I'm usually too lazy to get my pens out.
But for this, I did. I drew a collage of images with Sayori, from some of my favorite scenes.

First, I drew everything in pencil. Make sure you sharpen your pencils before, because otherwise, you get muddled lines.

After that, I traced all of it with a CD marker with 2 ends – a thicker one and a thinner one, better for details. I suggest erasing the pencil traces after you're done with the markers, because when you get to the coloring part, they will mix with the ink and darken the colors.

Lastly, the coloring in. I did this with felt tip pens, simply because those were closest in color to the actual game. I did the skin with soft pastel sticks, although those get extremely dusty and I had to retrace some of the marker.

Taaa-daa!

I gifted it to my brother, as a poster. He said it was cool.

So yeah, I definitely recommend this game to you. It's not for kids and it's not for the faint of heat, but it's a really worthwhile story. A game character endowed with feelings and doubts – now how cool is that!
Not to mention adorable Sayori.

##Have fun!