Everyone who finishes this game really must go watch the Game Theorists two part video on DDLC on YouTube. It's a really good and researched summary of everything people have discovered about this game.
I'm not gonna link it because it could spoil things. But trust me go watch it.
After you do I guarantee you'll appreciate this game even more than you already do and be amazed at how much thought and work was put into this free game.
There is a different ending. I wouldn't call it better.
To the person asking, you have to see every single CG of the girls before the suicide, just save scum, the game knows what you have and haven't seen per new file
Globally I thought it was interesting and has really good ideas and tricks but it wasn't as MINDBLOWING as I expected it to be.
Buuut it's pretty good for a free game. And Dan Salvato's first at that.
Production values are good too.
I pretty much agree with his final message
I think it plays the "OH LOOK HOW META ALL OF THIS IS" card a little too much but hey.
Anyway I'll gladly play his next game.
EDIT : Ok I just watch the Game Theories videos about the games and well my perception of the game changed.
And incidentally I totally said by coincidence I'd play the next game, it looks like there will be one ha ha.
I beat this a little while ago, and I didn't really find it as "disturbing" as people claim it to be, but it was definitely interesting. I think my only complaint is that the initial played-straight VN aspect of it goes on for way too long, when the game is blueballing you with "omg not suitable for children!!!" and it takes 30-45 minutes depending on how fast you're skimming text to get to those parts.
One could argue that it's necessary to add depth to the characters, but it's simply uninteresting and extremely cliche writing during that first half. Thankfully it makes up for it later.
I'd be interested in seeing what he does next, although VN's aren't really my thing, so it'll depend what the subject material is.
Edit: That Game Theory video mentioned above was really cool, and makes me more interested in what he's doing next, especially if he's staying in the horror genre.
Really didn't like this game. Felt it was poorly written and that it handled the subject matter poorly. It was so over the top in a comical way that I didn't even find it disturbing, just in bad taste.
I wish the game went further with the whole messing with the directory thing. I thought you'd be able to delete characters at specific points in the story and get different branches and results. Sadly, that part of the game seems pretty limited. Also, I get that the game is trying to pose as an overly generic VN/dating sim, but that doesn't exactly make the first half of the game fun to read. I think there's a way to have the batshit craziness later on without having you read a couple hours of boring story.
I wish the game went further with the whole messing with the directory thing. I thought you'd be able to delete characters at specific points in the story and get different branches and results. Sadly, that part of the game seems pretty limited. Also, I get that the game is trying to pose as an overly generic VN/dating sim, but that doesn't exactly make the first half of the game fun to read. I think there's a way to have the batshit craziness later on without having you read a couple hours of boring story.
It's weird: I feel like this whole meta 180º turnaround story has been done in the past, although I can't recall what game actually did it..
Anyway, it was a nice experience for a couple of hours but I don't think DDLC does anything really new and exciting, and when your entire game revolves around this novel concept and you don't actually deliver all that much, I just wonder "what was the point?".
But after playing through 3 different games that pulled off the same "meta for meta's sake" ending, I'm done with this trope. Devs can't just play it and expect gamers to be awed by their cleverness. It needs to have some sort of justification and it needs to be played well. Only one of these 3 games managed to do so.
I wish the game went further with the whole messing with the directory thing. I thought you'd be able to delete characters at specific points in the story and get different branches and results. Sadly, that part of the game seems pretty limited. Also, I get that the game is trying to pose as an overly generic VN/dating sim, but that doesn't exactly make the first half of the game fun to read. I think there's a way to have the batshit craziness later on without having you read a couple hours of boring story.
So I just spent a good chunk of time playing this earlier today and really enjoyed my time with it. Will put my thoughts into a spoiler but non-spoiler thoughts are that I'm glad I decided to get around to this and while I appreciate the content and trigger warnings I kind of wish I didn't know about anything going in because when that content appears it is shocking and would be more shocking not knowing anything.
So yeah, I enjoyed the game and while I'm bad with horror and scary things (in games or movies, when alone at least) I enjoyed this. I always say I'm bad with horror but I guess I'm mainly bad with jump scares, I don't like people going "BOO!" at me. But yeah, even outside the few jump scares the game was good with the creepy and unsettling stuff in the back half of the game.
I didn't fully expect how 4th wall breaking it would be. Going though the game the first time you pick up on the hints of each girls problem, well I only did poems for Sayori the first time because I wanted to min-max the game, but you see her depression with how she acts and how she is sleeping in late and then I helped Yuri and her knife stuff and rolling her sleeve down when you get back to the room made it obvious she self harms. But I expected that come the festival Monika would turn the whole thing into a creepy murder show or something, with how she shows up late and her poems. The only thing I think I picked up on with the 4th wall stuff from the first playthrough was the squid joke and how it wouldn't translate but I knew something was up with Monika in how it wouldn't let you pick words she'd like and how her poems were the strangest.
I didn't expect Sayori to hang herself and I know it's because of the Monika stuff but also it made sense, or felt believable with Sayori. Like how if you went down her path then even though she wanted you to like her it felt weird and how she doesn't want to be a burden and how hard it is when you feel that way. And how if you go with another girl then it feels like you didn't pay enough attention to her. I feel the game did a good job of showing how hard depression is to deal with, from both the sufferer and the people around them, like how it came as a shock to the protagonist and they just wanted to make it right but there isn't an easy fix.
But yeah, when the suicide happened and it mentions that file, that was when I looked in the games directory and read that file, and knew it was that kind of game. The one that likes to fuck around with the files in its directory and mess with you, and I love that. I noticed the character folder and noticed Sayori was gone and I was all "ooooooh, clever" and then you restart and Sayori is all glitched and deleted and then you go through again except now things are weird and scary stuff happens. I thought it was cool how you had to delete Monika at the end to get the game back to "normal" but it's also cool if you just moved her out and then put her back in how she gets you that ending. I didn't expect that, just wondered what would happen. Then the game breaks so I tried to verify the files to get stuff back but then it just lets you restart fresh or go back to the ending note. I also liked how you could delete Monika and start fresh and Sayori freaks out and the game breaks again.
Also, reading that other topic on the ARG, and going by some of what Monika says in this game, it seems that there will be another game? I can't wait to see what Dan Salvato comes up with next. I think this works great as promotion for him/his next game. I was shocked finding out this was free on steam so I won't be surprised if his next game costs money but I'd be more than willing to pay.
Jesus fucking christ, I knew what to expect going in from the aura surrounding this game and but...
Started on the restart (second route?) after Sayori hangs herself for getting Friendzoned
And well, jesus fucking christ I think I'm officially NOPE'd Out already. I have seen some shit before, shit that is inherently more... Jesus christ somehow that broke my limits even though I saw it fucking coming.
Jesus fucking christ, I knew what to expect going in from the aura surrounding this game and but...
Started on the restart (second route?) after Sayori hangs herself for getting Friendzoned
And well, jesus fucking christ I think I'm officially NOPE'd Out already. I have seen some shit before, shit that is inherently more... Jesus christ somehow that broke my limits even though I saw it fucking coming.
No, with other horror games/movies you already know that something is wrong and they often have dark atmosphere, and whatever scary thing happens, it affects the characters in it's own world.
Glitch horror like Doki Doki tho....they screw up directly with the player, especially in this case were the normal game is cute and happy but suddenly the game is crumbling and you feel truly helpless because you are not fighting some zombie or a nemesis, you are fighting the whole game itself! And good luck with that!
That's why even tho i played games like resident evil and the evil within last year, DDLC is what scared me the most of any game i have ever played
A friend egged me on to play this game tonight and it was definitely a unique experience
Me being a big scaredy cat found the sudden transitions enough to scare me a few times T_T
And am i correct that Monika represents this particular trope/archetype?
She represents the one character in romance visual novels that doesn't have her own route/ending. Outside of the main heroines, there's often another female character that gets a lot of screen time and is sometimes a friend of one of the heroines but doesn't have her own route. I don't know if there's a name for this but i'll call it "unattainable flower". Monika in the late game laments on how the game didn't give her opportunities to hang out with you. For me she represents how desperate this character type can get to officially have her own route.
A friend egged me on to play this game tonight and it was definitely a unique experience
Me being a big scaredy cat found the sudden transitions enough to scare me a few times T_T
And am i correct that Monika represents this particular trope/archetype?
She represents the one character in romance visual novels that doesn't have her own route/ending. Outside of the main heroines, there's often another female character that gets a lot of screen time and is sometimes a friend of one of the heroines but doesn't have her own route. I don't know if there's a name for this but i'll call it "unattainable flower". Monika in the late game laments on how the game didn't give her opportunities to hang out with you. For me she represents how desperate this character type can get to officially have her own route.
Monika doesnt necessarily represent a female character trope. Rather she's more the helper/ friend character you go to for advice trope (which is more shown in stat-based VNs) taken in a different direction
She represents the one character in romance visual novels that doesn't have her own route/ending. Outside of the main heroines, there's often another female character that gets a lot of screen time and is sometimes a friend of one of the heroines but doesn't have her own route. I don't know if there's a name for this but i'll call it "unattainable flower". Monika in the late game laments on how the game didn't give her opportunities to hang out with you. For me she represents how desperate this character type can get to officially have her own route.
Monika is an in-universe side character that doesn't have a route. She likely went insane not just because of her medium awareness, but because she saw the routes and dialogue trees in the coding and noticed she wasn't a part of it, meaning she was even "less" important than her "fictional" friends. She has a totally understandable reason for going full yandere.
I'm not playing the game myself, as I really don't find VN's that interesting. I'm watching the Game Grumps playthrough, and if I'm understanding this right:
Monika is basically like a character within the game that became self aware, like an AI would, and subsequently went insane after realizing she doesn't have any purpose in the game's story or "universe" except as salad dressing?
Jesus fucking christ, I knew what to expect going in from the aura surrounding this game and but...
Started on the restart (second route?) after Sayori hangs herself for getting Friendzoned
And well, jesus fucking christ I think I'm officially NOPE'd Out already. I have seen some shit before, shit that is inherently more... Jesus christ somehow that broke my limits even though I saw it fucking coming.
It is so funny that I played the game until this first 'END' just yesterday and had the exact same reaction, including the thing about the glitches. I regretted it a little because I also knew it would be something fucked up because of the 'aura' but I was completely unaware of what it really was and didn't really know what to expect. And it is worse than if it was
something more traditional/sexual than psychological horror - I don't even saw the tag on the Steam.
Even though I had enough of the game itself
- those warnings weren't joking -
I am looking forward to seeing where it all will go here in the 'outside'. It would be really interesting if the Game Theorists are right
- if they are, the strategy used reminded me a lot of The Blair Witch, very smart and innovative, specially by making the game free.
Just finished the game. I enjoyed the time I spent with it a bunch but I'm kinda disappointed as well.
The whole depression talk with Sayori is really well done and effective but it's a shame it goes full creepypasta afterwards. I was especially disappointed with Yuri. As someone who suffers from social anxiety, I related quite a bit to her at first but she just goes full crazy before exploring her condition in depth. It felt really insensitive and exploitative, like it was using mental health as a way to elicit cheap shock.
The whole meta horror thing is well done though but I felt it could have been much stronger if it didn't scrap the narrative about mental health along with it.
I would still recommand the game but it reeks of missed opportunity imo.
I agree. I even thought I was being too 'puritan' thinking that, but I can't ban the sentiment of exploitation it gave me, even though I think it is very well done and deserves the hype it is getting - but me, in a personal perspective - wish it had a little bit more depth.
Since everyone iz talking about the game theory videos, no, this game is not just an advertising for a next game and the easter eggs were added after the fact, no you won't see those characters again, those were confirmed long ago by Dan and it is sad to see those terrible videos spread such wrong information and everyone seems to believe it.
And the reason the game is free was
Because Dan said it would be wrong to sell something as a particular thing but it turns out to be something else, he feels it would be a scummy thing to do and not morally right
The end of the first act was a bit predictable (though tbf I completely ignored her in favor of Yuri, even if it meant taking the dialogue actions that made me act like a total asshole) and I wasn't entirely surprised by the end of the second act (what came after it was a really, really powerful moment though - especially if you progressed manually and didn't skip after a while), but I still really liked what I played.
Because Dan said it would be wrong to sell something as a particular thing but it turns out to be something else, he feels it would be a scummy thing to do and not morally right
That's interesting since a lot of his inspiration does just that and at least a few are commercial products. Hell, a good chunk of the VN market persists on that kind of thing.
I was hesitant about going in without knowledge of what subjects would be dealt with. Other Visual Novels have greatly bothered me in the past, not for good reasons either.
That said, I think this game will stick with me for a while.
I was startled at how accurate Sayoris dialogue was when she began to talk openly about her depression. I felt like I was 17 again, hopelessly unsure how I could help my girlfriend at that time. That whole segment hit really hard, and I personally found it to be true to my experiences.
Whenever a game presents my full name, I can't help but shiver a little bit.
I read alot about how this game is NOT what it seems, but I still don't like games that look like this.
I don't like the art style, and I've seen enough anime to know what kind of fanservice these genre introduce. I don't want it!
But my curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to see what this is about, and well... it's free! (also nice to know it's from a Project M dev)
They say this game isn't for the easily disturbed people, I thought I can handle some psychological horror, I just don't like jump scares and creepy gore. But the game is something else. Keep in mind that I went into the game COMPLETELY blind. I knew nothing.
I started the game yesterday, and wanted to aim for Sayori. (the game said I needed to impress one of the girls, and I usually like a character based on design first, and then personality)
I thought it was all standard anime tropes:
childhood friend that's too close to the main character, overly obvious that they love each other and they still talk about "we are really good friends!". There is the tsundere type that's also a loli, she's 100% illegal, but nobody cares. And the quiet librarian type girl, socially awkward and stuff.
It started quite normal for a visual noval/dating sim. I shaked my head a few times and chuckled at the standard tropes, I actually enjoyed it in some way!
Every time something unusual happened, I was like: "Is this it? Is this the stuff that everyone is talking about?" But nope! I was really on edge sometimes, but I didn't expect THAT.
But boy, did it fall apart really quick! I don't know what happened. I kept saying WHAT out loud every few seconds. I was confused, I started to question myself.
I made all my poems to match Sayori's tastes, I was sure I won her heart. But the weekend before the school festival it started it started to happen. I wasn't aware things would go wrong, I just thought she was jealous or something. I thought it was normal. I chose to help Yuri for the weekend. And then it got even more crazy with Sayori telling about her depression, that was messed up! Yuri is also crazy herself, with her licking my bleeding finger out of nowhere. I actually laughed a bit. But the main character grabbing her finger and licking it in return was MESSED UP MAN. I still wasn't suspecting anything, I thought it was about the girls having some issues or fetishes and me dealing with them. I ended up confessing to Sayori, I thought that was the goal. To date my waifu. But I was hesitating: She wanted things to stay as they always were, I considered staying friends. BUT that would make her jealous of the other girls... probably. But confessing would probably make her depression go away. So I went with confession.
The day of the festival messed me up GOOD. I really thought Sayori overslept, but the messed up thing was Monika just casually having a creepy poem sitting there and her knowing that we met the day before.
I somehow knew what was next after that, but it was worse than I thought. When I saw Sayori dead and hanging there, I saw the error on screen. At first I thought something went wrong, but then I decided to check the files.
OMG THAT'S CRAZY! I realised I should have chosen to stay friends (the main character also said that!). I saved the game while this happened and tried to load an older file before I confessed, but the data was corrupted it says. THEY REALLY DID DELETE SAYORI'S FILES! She's litteraly dead, gone! And the game is joking about it and writing creepy poems as well. Worse even, the game forced me to start a new game after I tried to load the older save file. AND WTF THEY DELETED HER EVEN IF I START OVER?! And everyone pretends Sayori doesn't even exist. I wanted to go back and finish what I started, BUT THEY DELETED MY SAVE FILES!!!!
The game is so creepy right now, the characters start glitching left and right, especially Monika. Damn she's so creepy all of a sudden. At one point she glitched in FRONT of the dialogue box. WTF! And the faces of those girls are glitching every now and then as well, WHAT IS HAPPENING.
I thought I wasn't easily disturbed, but I AM WRONG. I'm creeped out, I had to stop then to take a breather. Just. What. Is. Happening.
Even quitting the game didn't stop the madness. The main menu DELETED SAYORI and replaced her with a glitched Monika. Stop. THAT. Monika pls.
So this is my story with this game. What is coming next?
Extra bonus ending, it's mostly the same but instead of getting Monika's message in the end you get a special message from the developer Dan, it's not necessary at all and you can easily look it up online but it's cute.
About how you get it, you unlock all the CG in the game in the first half before THAT by trying to go with every girl, naturally it involves saves loading as you can't get out with multiple girls one time
Extra bonus ending, it's mostly the same but instead of getting Monika's message in the end you get a special message from the developer Dan, it's not necessary at all and you can easily look it up online but it's cute.
About how you get it, you unlock all the CG in the game in the first half before THAT by trying to go with every girl, naturally it involves saves loading as you can't get out with multiple girls one time
you can just skip it all -or fast forward the hell out of it-, there is an option in the settings that make you able to skip unread text, just check it and keep on pressing ctrl
This will make the process of getting all the CGs faster as well
you can just skip it all -or fast forward the hell out of it-, there is an option in the settings that make you able to skip unread text, just check it and keep on pressing ctrl
This will make the process of getting all the CGs faster as well
I consider myself someone who doesn't get disturbed easily and went into the game knowing there was going to be some creepy twists but it still messed me up REALLY badly. I'm pretty sure the game legit traumatized me and gave me mild depression.
After finishing it, I would keep catching myself feeling down while thinking about the game and its characters. It's a feeling I hadn't felt since college, when I was constantly down over relationship matters and would space out throughout many dinners.
10/10 GOTY
I expected to see Sayori commit suicide but somehow that hanging scene still managed to shock me deeply. I had been desensitized to gore and violence after years of mature games and movies but Sayori's suicide haunted me because it seemed so plausible IRL. I quit the game and sat in my room stunned for some time. I continued to think about that scene for hours. I felt a sense hopelessness thinking about the futility of rationalising with someone suffering from depression and wondered if any of my friends could secretly be depressed.
Then I sort of got sad over Monika's story. Her love for the MC was so intense that she was able to survive through her existentialist dread and sacrifice so many things (and friends) to try to find happiness with him. But in the end she gets deleted by him.
I thought Monika's conversations with the MC at the end of the game were so interesting and filled with her brand of love that I even started questioning my relationship IRL. After four years of being with my girlfriend, I sort of stopped feeling that 'spark' and this game made me realise that maybe it's partially because we stopped having deep and meaningful conversations. Nowadays it's all just day to day small talk. Because of that I'm now trying to bring up more 'stimulating' topics with my girlfriend but I keep thinking about the game and Monika so much that it almost feels like I'm cheating on my girlfriend, haha.
Anyways, I'm just really blown away by how this game affected me so much.
So all of the buzz around this game since release piqued my interest, and I wanted to play it before I ended up getting it spoiled for me. Quite the experience!
I had never played a true visual novel game, really have never watched any anime, and have never read any manga. I'm sure some jokes went right over my head as a result - in fact I recall a line making fun of one of the character's names but I did not get it at all. I basically only knew the game was a dark visual novel prior to jumping in. The "x factor" for me is that I have pretty severe anxiety and depression issues. I was really appreciative of how many times the game tries to warn you about the content if you have mental health concerns. In my case, I kind of saw these warnings as almost a challenge, thinking, "how bad can it really be? I'm sure I can handle it as a lot of these kind of warnings are overblown." That reaction is all on me, as Team Salvato gives multiple warnings and the game quickly gives you an idea of some of the topics it will cover (at least in Act 1).
Thankfully the game didn't cause any real issues with me and my anxiety history. Once I got about midway through Act 1 I was pretty hooked and totally lost track of time as I continued to play through the entire thing in one sitting. I pretty much immediately checked online for the easter eggs/other things I missed. I was pretty floored at the variety of ways the game scares you/remains generally creepy and dark after Act 1.
10/10 in terms of memorability, I don't think I've ever become as emotionally invested in a game so quickly besides maybe Telltale's The Walking Dead season 1. After looking up the easter eggs/things I missed, though, I don't think I'll replay it just to see some of it firsthand, but I am tempted to watch MOONMOON_OW's twitch stream of the game to see how he reacted.
