It’s safe to say that I’m a big fan of visual novels in general, but there’s something particularly alluring to me when a developer like Team Salvato subverts every expectation we’ve come to expect from the form. “Doki Doki Literature Club” starts off with every trope you can imagine, but all is not as it seems.

You play as a blank slate protagonist who attends school, and quickly gets railroaded into joining an extracurricular book club with four swooning girls: Sayori (your bestie), Yuri (the sad one), Natsuki (the uppity one), and Monika (the ❏◼︎□▪︎❒◇ one).

Unsurprisingly, they all want to jump your bones. But before you can start smooching, everything goes off the rails. And I do mean everything.

If you’re not sensitive to any emotionally intense topics, I recommend jumping in, and playing with as little context as possible. However, the developers know full well that some people need advance notice on what they’re going to be exposed to, so please check out the content warnings to make an informed decision.

At the risk of spoiling some of the fun, I’ll do my best to entice you with the promise of a wild ride without getting into the details. You can probably tell from context clues that there is some really dark shit going on. Something horrific does happen that will stop your first play through in its tracks, but that’s all part of the magic. The horror only intensifies from there.

The juxtaposition of cutesy anime romance and nightmare is noteworthy, sure, but that’s not what makes it an all-timer for me. Instead, there are meta aspects that break the fourth wall in interesting ways. The fact that it’s a game running on a PC is part of the experience.

An expanded version dubbed “Doki Doki Literature Club Plus” did eventually make its way onto consoles in 2021, and it’s a nice little package with some pleasant side stories. However, some compromises had to be made to make it functional that end up dampening the reality-breaking aspects of this strange, beautiful visual novel. It had to be done, but it is frustrating nonetheless.

But no matter how you choose to play it, you’re still bound to experience an outrageous work of art. If you have the stomach for it, you simply must play it. And since the core game is free on Steam, you’re not risking anything but some heebie-jeebies to give it a try.

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“Doki Doki Literature Club” is available for free on PC. The enhanced console release is available on PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch for $15.

Image credit: “Doki Doki Literature Club,” Team Salvato