This blog contains spoilers both about Doki Doki Literature Club. Do not read if you still intend to experience it for yourself first-hand and do not read if you are sensitive to topics involving mental health conditions.
This game has been picking up momentum online recently. Upon realising that the game is free, and after being nudged towards trying it by oddly tight-lipped friends, I downloaded it from Steam. I did notice whilst on the Steam page that it was tagged Psychological Horror, which initially told me a little about what I was going to be getting into, and upon booting up the game, there is a disclaimer that this game is not suitable for children or people uncomfortable with topics of anxiety and depression. Given its disguise as a visual novel it's very easy to assume that these warnings relate to issues that you will be helping the characters in coping with as is quite typical in VNs, or a bad end, another common trope in the genre.
For a little exposition if you're for some reason reading this without knowing what DDLC is, it is a psychological horror metagame disguised as a visual novel. For the majority of the first playthrough, it's a high-spirited interactive romance story, where upon naming your character, you are coaxed into joining a struggling high-school Literature Club with your childhood friend Sayori. Sayori is a somewhat hyperactive, cheery girl who has a strong sense of familiarity with the character you're playing, and holds some very badly hidden romantic feelings for you. After agreeing to join the club, you spend your time interacting with Sayori and 3 other girls. Yuri, a tall, shy bookworm who loves horror fiction, Natsuki, a tsundere under-classman who enjoys baking and prefers manga to prose, and Monika, the friendly club president who is both academically and athletically talented and is popular around the school for both her likeable personality and her looks.
