Doki Doki Literature Club!
"I'm super excited for you to make friends with everyone and help the Literature Club become a more intimate place for all my members. But I can tell already that you're a sweetheart—will you promise to spend the most time with me? ♥"
—Monika, official description of the game
Doki Doki Literature Club! is a 2017 visual novel by Team Salvato, available on Steam and itch.io for free.
An Ordinary High School Student (with a custom name) is invited by her ditzy childhood friend Sayori to the Literature Club. Reluctant at first, he finds out all four members, including Sayori, are girls! As he bonds with Natsuki, the cute but feisty Tsundere, Yuri, the shy bookworm, and Monika, the club's President, he may fall in love just in time for the Festival…
This game is not suitable for children
or those who are easily disturbed.
Note: The main character will be referred to here as "MC". Also, tropes that happen during the Festival should go on this page.
- Apologises a Lot: Yuri. Lampshaded by MC on the third day, who convinces her to apologize less often.
- Beige Prose: Natsuki swears on this technique for her poems, on the condition of including cute words in them. She utterly despises Purple Prose.
[If MC shows Natsuki a poem that appeals to Yuri.]
Natsuki: I hate when people try to sound fancy or add more meaning just by using annoying and complicated language. Just make it simple, cute, and to the point! Yuri's head over heels for all this cryptic nonsense, but I see right through that BS. Hah! Making your reader look so hard for all this deep meaning is just an excuse to have no meaning at all.
- Actually, Natsuki is not so much a Beige Prose writer, she just likes to write simple poems that some people may call childish.
- Beneath the Mask: Sayori is a very happy person on the outside, but she suffers from depression inside.
- Big Eater: On the fourth day, when making cupcakes with Natsuki at his kitchen, MC says that if Sayori were here with them now, there would be ten less cupcakes and she would still be hungry for dinner. That's in contrast to Natsuki, who has to keep her appetite for her father's dinner.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall:
- Monika frequently breaks the fourth wall, giving the tip of saving the game as one of her Writing Tips, pointing out that an Incredibly Lame Pun in Japanese by Natsuki doesn't make sense in translation, pointing out that humans are "two-dimensional", only to get corrected by MC (it's "one-dimensional"…).
- Every time this happens, she acts as if she made a mistake, playing dumb.
- But Thou Must!:
- On the third day, choosing to help Sayori for the festival preparations ends up with the three other girls insisting that she will be helped by Monika. The choice prompt then appears again, minus the choice for Sayori.
- Choosing Monika will prompt a big argument between the three (Monika already has Sayori to help, and she needs the least help; ulterior motives?). In the end, Monika will relent and let MC choose between the other girls.
- Buxom Is Better: Yuri gets comments about her large chest from Natsuki (as an insult) and Sayori (as an endearing, but embarrassing compliment).
- Damned By Faint Praise: In the beginning of Yuri and Natsuki's confrontation:
Yuri: [Your poem] is… cute…
Natsuki: Cute? Did you completely miss the symbolism of something? It's about the feeling of giving up. How can that be cute?
Yuri: I-I know that! I just meant… The language, I guess… I was trying to say something nice…
Natsuki: Eh? You mean you have to try that hard to come up with something nice to say? Thanks, but it really didn't come out nice at all!
- Eating Lunch Alone: Yuri reveals to MC in third day (if she reads a poem she likes) that she eats alone during lunchtime.
- Excited Show Title!
- Foreshadowing:
- On the first day, Yuri tells MC about her favorite literature genre, surreal horror, and how she is engaged with complex turns and twists in her books.
Yuri: Isn't it amazing how a writer can so deliberately take advantage of your own lack of imagination to completely throw you for a loop?
- On the second day, when following Yuri's route, MC is surprised at the darkness of Yuri's book:
"Yuri made it sound like it was going to be a nice story, so that dark turn came from nowhere."
- When showing her first poem "Hole in Wall", Monika mentions to MC an "epiphany" she had, but doesn't say what it is.
- Yuri: I guess there's a little devil inside all of us, isn't there?
- Sayori: Writing's the best! I'm gonna keep writing until I die!
- In general, some of the poems gets darker and darker.
- Yuri: [about her poem "The Raccoon"] I wanted to express the way it feels for me to indulge in my unusual hobbies... It's those sorts of things I'm usually forced to keep to myself.
- On the third day with Natsuki:
Natsuki: [to Monika] See what happens when you put the manga on the top shelf?! Are you trying to kill your club members or something?
- Yuri: This club is seriously going to be the death of me…
- Yuri: Stagnating air is common foreshadowing that something terrible is about to happen…
- MC: In your books, maybe!
- (When foreshadowing lampshades itself…)
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Sayori says this to MC often, but it turns out she loves him, and it hurts.
- Knife Nut: On the fourth day, when making decorations with MC, Yuri admits to him that she is a fan of knives and has a collection of them.
- Living Emotional Crutch: As revealed later on the fourth day by Monika, Sayori is very dependent on MC and is the only reason she lives.
- Mini Game: The poem-writing mini game (click on words that appeal to different girls).
- Moment Killer: On the third day with Yuri, just as MC puts another chocolate in her mouth while sitting very close together, Monika pops up and announces the usual poem sharing session. MC then thinks "The spell is abruptly broken".
- Non Sequitur:
- "Dear Sunshine" by Sayori is an earnest poem, but then ends with "I want breakfast".
- Monika's second Writing Tip of the Day is to save the game.
- Out-of-Character is Serious Business: When MC sees Sayori, usually full of happiness, in a dejected mood at school, he becomes very concerned about her.
- Show Within a Show: Yuri's book Portrait of Markov and Natsuki's Slice of Life manga Parfait Girls.
- Spoiler: In-Universe. Both Natsuki and Yuri interrupt themselves to avoid revealing spoilers in what they read to the main character.
- Stealth Insult: When MC and Natsuki are spending time together reading manga on the second day, they talk about people who judge manga readers:
MC: Honestly, it takes a lot of effort to find friends who don't judge, much less friends who are also into it… I'm already kind of a loser, so I guess I gravitated toward the other losers over time. But it's probably harder for someone like you…
Natsuki: Hm. Yeah, that's pretty accurate.
MC: [thinking] …Wait, which part??
- Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: Natsuki points out that she used the trope in her poem "Eagles Can Fly".
- That Makes Me Feel Angry: Yuri has a habit of stating her emotions.