Google has removed popular psychological horror game Doki Doki Literature Club! from the Play Store.
Google has removed popular psychological horror game Doki Doki Literature Club! from the Play Store. According to Dan Salvato, who led its development team, and publisher Serenity Forge, Google told them the visual novel was removed because it violated its Terms of Service in its depiction of sensitive themes. The game is “widely celebrated for portraying mental health in a way that meaningfully connects deeply with players around the world,” they said in their announcement. Its free version, which came out first, has been downloaded at least 30 million times, while the paid “Plus” version has had at least one million downloads. The visual novel has repeatedly made Engadget’s lists of favorite games over the years.
To be absolutely fair, the point of the game is to mislead you, though it does signpost it very well (I imagine because someone told them they had to — it doesn’t make sense if the signposts were part of the original design).
I downloaded it, started it up, and got rid of all the signposts, then sat my wife down and had her play through the whole thing. (Yes, we’re still married.) I wish I’d filmed it… what a ride. To this day she hates the Monika wallpaper I have. If you’ve finished the game, you probably know exactly what scene I mean. Maybe you have one too.
Anyway, it’s probably best played on Steam on a computer (Mac and Linux should be as fine as Windows) rather than a phone or a game console, for reasons I feel should be obvious to people who have finished the game. I know it exists on consoles, and I can’t imagine that part being plausible on consoles.
If anyone who has NO intention of playing the game wants to know what I mean, I’ll elaborate under a spoiler tag:
spoiler
At one point, the Monika character becomes self-aware of herself as a video game character, and takes her beef with you outside of the game, addressing you by your real name (as it’s registered to Steam — games weren’t supposed to get access to this, but nothing stopped them from doing so, so the game was able to call you by your real name, which shocked a lot of people at the time). The way you “beat” her is by going into the system files and deleting the MONIKA file. This isn’t something your average computer user would know or think to do, I think it’s vaguely signposted, but in any case, it would be a lot harder on a phone (especially an iPhone) and impossible on a console (or an iPhone, actually). So I imagine there’s some other mechanism to let you do a similar thing… but it wouldn’t feel as authentic.
Actually she isn’t getting your real name through Steam, it was pulling the name you had for your user profile on your OS afaik. There’s several other games that have done something similar, it’s not very hard at all for a program to pull that information.
I’m trying to decide if you’re a good person for allowing your wife to experience the game with no signposting or an evil person for allowing your wife to experience the game with no signposting
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To be absolutely fair, the point of the game is to mislead you, though it does signpost it very well (I imagine because someone told them they had to — it doesn’t make sense if the signposts were part of the original design).
I downloaded it, started it up, and got rid of all the signposts, then sat my wife down and had her play through the whole thing. (Yes, we’re still married.) I wish I’d filmed it… what a ride. To this day she hates the Monika wallpaper I have. If you’ve finished the game, you probably know exactly what scene I mean. Maybe you have one too.
Anyway, it’s probably best played on Steam on a computer (Mac and Linux should be as fine as Windows) rather than a phone or a game console, for reasons I feel should be obvious to people who have finished the game. I know it exists on consoles, and I can’t imagine that part being plausible on consoles.
If anyone who has NO intention of playing the game wants to know what I mean, I’ll elaborate under a spoiler tag:
spoiler
At one point, the Monika character becomes self-aware of herself as a video game character, and takes her beef with you outside of the game, addressing you by your real name (as it’s registered to Steam — games weren’t supposed to get access to this, but nothing stopped them from doing so, so the game was able to call you by your real name, which shocked a lot of people at the time). The way you “beat” her is by going into the system files and deleting the MONIKA file. This isn’t something your average computer user would know or think to do, I think it’s vaguely signposted, but in any case, it would be a lot harder on a phone (especially an iPhone) and impossible on a console (or an iPhone, actually). So I imagine there’s some other mechanism to let you do a similar thing… but it wouldn’t feel as authentic.
spoiler i haven't played nor bought but i have a spoilerific thought
huh. what happens if you delete monika before running the game?
Tap for spoiler
The main love interest gains her 4th-wall-breaking powers, loses her mind and crashes the game. Fun times!
neat!
wow what a concept ! breaking the… not sure what, but it’s breaking it
Actually she isn’t getting your real name through Steam, it was pulling the name you had for your user profile on your OS afaik. There’s several other games that have done something similar, it’s not very hard at all for a program to pull that information.
I’m trying to decide if you’re a good person for allowing your wife to experience the game with no signposting or an evil person for allowing your wife to experience the game with no signposting
I haven’t played it myself, but when DDLC+ was released for consoles, I read they had to redo the end part.