Doki Doki Literature Club - Game Club

Japanese Language Book Clubs
1

As requested by a lot of people earlier, I will be starting a Doki Doki Literature Club Game Club.

What is Doki Doki Literature Club (DDLC)?

Doki Doki Literature Club! is a 2017 American visual novel developed by Team Salvato. The story follows a male high school student who joins the school’s literature club and interacts with its four female members. The game was incredibly popular and has extremely high ratings on Steam.

Doki Doki Literature Club may not be suitable for you if you are affected by any of the following themes:

  • Depression
  • Suicide
  • Self-harm
  • Abuse

How can I play the game?

The easiest way to play DDLC is through Steam, where it is available for free. (10/10 Rating on Steam from 120k reviews)

The game only comes in English, but it can be changed to Japanese by using this mod:

Sample of the game (no spoilers, just trying to save space)

1296040205_preview_2018-02-10_100420
1296040205_preview_2018-02-10_1004201280×720 1.29 MB
1296040205_preview_20180210100801_1
1296040205_preview_20180210100801_11280×720 258 KB

Screen Shot 2020-01-04 at 11.11.34 AM
Screen Shot 2020-01-04 at 11.11.34 AM1264×790 1000 KB

When does the book club start?

The book club started on January 18th, and will continue every Saturday from then on.

Week 1
Week 2
Week 3

How is it structured?

The game is not very long (about 6 hours in English), however, as expected, in Japanese it will take much longer. We decided to divide the game into smaller chunks and discuss every Saturday.

Who is moderating the club?

Of course, since I’m the one encouraging you guys to try the game, I will be the one leading the club. However, I would greatly appreciate if someone was able to help me out, as I don’t think I will be able to understand all the info that DDLC will throw at me. Maybe someone with better Japanese than me can help out, if possible!

Last poll (they’re fun to make)

  • I would like to participate in this club
  • I’m not able / I don’t want to participate
  • I would participate if some important details were changed

0 voters

If I’m missing anything important info, someone please tell me, and I will be glad to answer/help :+1:

6 Likes
2

I’ll install the patch, and I might participate, but that’s still up in the air since I don’t want to put my other reading project on hold. I’ll see whether I have time to follow along with this.

Two thoughts I had about the club:

People should take screenshots of any troubled dialogue that they have. Unlike with a book, other members can’t easily go back and doudle-check a section.

Spoilers, I guess? About the structure of the game rather than story.

Aren’t there a few possible branching paths at some point? Like who you choose to spend time with in class. Will there be an “official” game club path to pick, so that everyone takes the same route and can all be discussing the same text? If everyone is playing different routes, it can be hard to answer questions based off 1 screenshot, while lacking the overall context of the conversation. Or maybe votes to get a majority consensus on what choices to make? Unless the game is more linear than I remember it being, without much branching. :thinking:

In any case, good luck with the club and enjoy! ^^

4 Likes
3

I’ll definitely join! (and I hope I can keep up with whatever pace you guys choose :laughing:)
Yup, I had the same question as @Omun. If everybody chooses a different route, it could be indeed hard to help out the others with any questions they have. I’ve already played every route (and remember them pretty well I think) so it’s not really a problem for me, but maybe we could decide on one route for the people who have never played the game? :thinking: Or you could also create a poll and ask whether everybody chooses their own route or if we’re all doing the same (since polls are fun!)

4 Likes
4

I would love to take part if there was furigana available in the game. Right now, I think that my kanji’s knowledge is too low :sweat_smile:.

3 Likes
5

I want to take part but definitely can’t start before February - I’ll just try to join up with you guys later if you start earlier and hope you don’t mind talk of old stuff. :slight_smile:

3 Likes
6

That shouldn’t be a problem at all. I expect a lot of people from different levels in the club, and because of that, speed will vary for everyone, so you will catch up easily. Hope you enjoy the club :+1:

2 Likes
7

Alright so from the results of the polls (those there weren’t that many people that voted actually, I wonder why, considering my previous post about the club got a lot of views), we will start on this Sunday and go by a week by week approach.

What do you guys think would be good to do for the first week? Up until the end of the first day (which means finishing with writing a poem)? That part takes about 40 minutes in English, so this should be a good start, in my opinion.

2 Likes
8

Never underestimate the amount of lurkers on WK. :wink:

7 Likes
9

Sounds good! Looking forward to it :slightly_smiling_face:

3 Likes
10

Am half interested in playing along with y’all. The other half is reminding me that I do not know enough Japanese vocab to properly participate here.

On a side note, I recently began re-watching the Game Grumps playthrough of DDLC, so this thread caught my attention.
Still as unsettling as three years ago.

4 Likes
11

I think it should be mentioned here that week 1 thread is open and starting now:

I think we should open a new thread for every week and add each of them to the first post in this thread for overview, like in reading clubs here. That way, every week has its separate discussion thread so the discussion doesn’t get mixed, and you can always get an overview here.

Please join everyone, looking forward to this :relaxed:

1 Like
12

Installation instructions in English:
Download the game from Steam or ichi.moe.

Download the translation:
https://github.com/proudust/ddlc-jp-patch/releases/download/190801/DDLC_JP_190801.zip
(also linked on the japanese Steam mod page)

Open the zip, go into the game folder, then copy both of the .rpa files into your DDLC/game folder.
To find your DDLC game folder on Steam:
Right click Doki Doki Literature Club → Manage → Browse local files

The game started in Japanese automatically for me, but if not, you may have to select the language in the settings.

Also, here’s a guide to set up very useful dictionary/translation aids for the game:

3 Likes
13

Thanks a lot for the help. It’s my first time starting a club so I’m new to this as well.

1 Like
14

All good, you’re doing a really good job! Just helping out a bit.

2 Likes