Why is this game so good?

Why is this game so good?

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Why did they rip of an episode of Gravity Falls?

its not, normies got hold of it and memed it into oblivion, so now some shitty 2 hour long vn that has no redeeming qualities, shit characters, and relies only on ill-timed shock value for emotional impact is (or was) super popular. It had its 15 minutes, let it fade into obscurity like the mediocre garbage it is.

I fucking hate anime and dating sims, but this game somehow was decent enough to catch my attention for 4 hours.
It's not the story itself, but the unexpected shock elements and the music which makes it pretty good,

I was so dissapointed by this, I heard that there was a twist and that the game was depressing and I got real excited for some mental illness subversion and VNs seem like a perfect avenue for that.
Turns out it's just meta game shit.

its only a "dating sim" for an hour, then it dumps the suicide shit on you out of nowhere. You are given no time to actually get emotionally invested into the story or characters. The game was so eager to shove the shock scares in your face that it was almost funny when it happened instead of emotional

Wrong question.
>why is this game more accessible than others that have done the same thing?

>it got popular so now I hate it

>I got real excited for some mental illness subversion and VNs seem like a perfect avenue for that.
woulda been way better with this

Youtuber reaction bait + presenting actually interesting though-provoking ideas and themes + anime grils + it's free

There's something in there for everyone.

>Good

>presenting actually interesting though-provoking ideas and themes
except this wasnt in there

>"game"
>>/vg/

I liked it.
Sure its far away from being a master piece, since there is lots of room for improvements, but overall it performed very well.

I feel like there's a lot of stuff to discuss about in DDLC. For example, I feel like Monika should be excused for her actions whereas a lot of people blame her entirely.

Has anything been added or discovered since the first month or two? I remember something about hidden messages in the game files hinting at the existence of some other girl who's not in the game, did we ever get more info about that?

Nothing has been added, the ARG stuff in the files are teasers towards the teaam's next project (which people are hoping gives more closure)

Lol, just Monika bro XD

Eh, I think adding more to the Doki doki-verse would kinda kill the whole point of it. Its supposed to be a generic dating sim VN that ends up getting hijack by the side-character who became self-aware. Adding more to the universe, at least adding more stuff that isn't just generic dating sim stuff, would ruin that.

I just want the girls to be happy and not trapped in a living hell over and over again ok

But they're not. They either don't exist, or preserved in a happy state.

Ok I'll bite
The whole game has to do with people grappling with the notion of futility. Natsuki's first poem in Act I really sets the tone for the entire game.
No matter what you do you can't save Sayori, her depression is is too deep rooted for the protag to be able to do anything about, except try.

Act II and III is are little bit more complex, and entirely about Monika
Act II follows the story of Monika coming to the realization that she has no real power in the game world, about her struggle with the notion of futility. Monika attempts to take control of the game-world in order to "write herself an ending" where she can be with the protag forever. However, it's futile, because it's just not possible for her to get then ending she wants. She is fordoomed to either (a) get sidelined while the protag goes after the other dokis, or (b) delete all the other dokis and trap herself in a virtual hells cape for eternity (which is Act III.)

Act IV
Here we learn that no matter what, the literature club can only bring suffering. Without Monika, Sayori just becomes the hijaker. Whoever is the Club President will become self aware. Regardless of the actions of the Protag or the Club president, the dokis are either trapped in a virtual hellscape (act III) or forced to forever carry out the motions of the literature club. That's why Monika just "deletes" the entire game at the end.

Nice reading comprehension, bucko.

Don't think anything's been added, but the whole story has pretty much been cracked.

The four girls are from a past game, which could possibly be an outright horror. Visual Novel characters don't need parameters, and personality fucked with otherwise, they have pre made paths.
One of the girls of the four is the antagonist of the previous game.
The picture of the blonde girl has no other related evidence that's been found. Possibly protagonist from the first.

Because few developers have the balls to put so much effort into what is basically a story designed to troll the audience by getting you attached to characters and then having them die horribly.

It's the game equivalent of that anime I can't remember the name of, where they did some groundhog day shit, and they actually really did it, they made the same episode like 6 times over, animated it completely differently each time, put so much work into something that had no real entertainment value, no purpose other then to piss people off.

this

You sound like an ape. Go climb a tree fucko.

Get on my level

>You are given no time to actually get emotionally invested into the story or characters.
If you're a speedreader and didn't commit to a girl, maybe
youtube.com/watch?v=BDsCNVj72ig

>Minecraft Story Mode
Why would anyone want to be on your level?

>game
It's a VN. VNs aren't games. They're interactive books.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Endless Eight "arc"

Sayori's depression was a result of Monika amplifying it. She took like 1% depression and turned it into 100%. She did the same to other girls, amplifying their negative sides until it killed them.

>Paladins
Your level is below the bottom of the barrel

Oh interesting theory I read somewhere.
The piano in the game is Monika. When you hear it, it means she's seeing what's on screen. The most significant evidence is when Yuri wants to talk to you one on one, she waits till the piano stops before saying Monika isn't around.

you're the audience the game was never meant to appeal to

>"There's a little devil inside all of us."
>Beneath their manufactured perception - their artificial reality - is a writhing, twisted mess of dread. Loathing. Judgment. Elitism. Self-doubt.
>All thrashing to escape the feeble hold of their host, seeping through every little crevice they can find.
>Into their willpower, starving them of all motivation and desire.
>Into their stomach, forcing them to drown their guilt in comfort food.
>Or into a newly-opened gash in their skin, hidden only by the sleeves of a cute new shirt.
>Such a deplorable, tangled mass is already present in every single one of them. That's why I choose not to blame myself for their actions.
>All I did was untie the knot.
The girls already had issues before Monika did anything. Sayori was already depressed, just not suicidal. Yuri was already possessive and cutting herself, just not crazy obsessed and fetishizing it. Natsuki had issues with her dad, they just weren't as bad. Their portrayals in Act 1 are mostly genuine, except Sayori when she goes off the deep end.

whoops, meant for

Yeah? That's what I just said?

This "theory" is dumb and based pretty much entirely one that one scene where they do the gag of the music being muffled, despite there being several scenes where there's no music while Monika herself is on-screen.

Sayori's depression was a lot more than "1%" before Monika did anything.

Started out great, had some neat ideas, I personally liked the soundtrack, mediocre/10

What are you talking about he is 100% the game's target audience

This game has the biggest effect on people who actively take the waifu bait and start to care about the characters

user here's the absolute worst part:
It's implied all Monika had to do was some good old fashioned social manipulation to get Sayori to kill herself. Mostly because A: Sayori mentions the "things she said to me" in her suicide poem and B: Monika only started to alter the game once it wouldn't continue with Sayori dead.

It was just a random number you nitpicker. It wasn't like I opened up the game files and found an actual percentage of how depressed Sayori was before Monika messed with her. She was depressed but not the point that she would kill herself. Not all depressed people try suicide.

Because it doesn't need to play when she's there?
youtube.com/watch?v=NnQc6JMTQx0
Here, I found a video on it. Go judge it yourself.

This and Undertale prove how important the soundtrack is to a game. And how much you can do by recycling a few good leitmotifs.
youtube.com/watch?v=BFSWlDpA6C4
youtube.com/watch?v=rsBeCQA93-Q
youtube.com/watch?v=al1BNB8bKaE

>People think "Get out of my head" is about Monika literally messing with her mind
>In the context of the other lines she's actually addressing the protagonist and it's the cognitive dissonance caused by her feelings for him that are driving her crazy

Reminder that Natsuki was right and
Natsuki's poems > Sayori's poems >>> Monika's "poems" >>> Yuri's poems

Exactly, OSTs with leitmotifs can be amazing, I loved Undertale's diverse but similar songs.

I think Reddit and Discord went a little to far in this

BUT THAT'S JUST A THEORY

That's pretty accurate, actually. Natsuki's poems had a nice messafe and rhythm to them, Sayori's Bottles poem was pretty cool, I don't remember any of Monika's poems, and Yuri is a pretentious edgy bitch who has little idea about the nature of literature.

Fpbp

It's free and not terrible

Bruh. Just about everything is a theory here.

Not the things that, you know, actually happened in the game, or are presented by the characters
All the "Project Libitina" shit is neat but there's absolutely no hard connection between it and what goes on in the game.

I’ll still never understand why they did this

>calling this a game
Its a fucking picture book.
>Calling it good
Its tropey as fuck and thinks its so clever when its not

>tropey

whoops

>i cant handle true criticism so im gunna post an anime goyl and put one of da wurdz OP said in gween text

I dont know if youve noticed but "Technology can be scary" is a very common trope in media

I know if you play the game a dozen times you can get different poems, and other little tidbits that do relate to these theories.
You can say that yes, technically the game files easter eggs are not in the game, and are not part of the story. But given that a major part of the game is one character manipulating the files, and talking to you about them, I'd bet money that they are part of it. There's even some little tidbit on the store. Yes, it doesn't mean it's part of the story, but I believe it's asinine to suggest a person, or team would put in the effort to make all this extra content that is completely unrelated to the story at hand.

the prequel was better

Natsuki's poems have a consistent voice, her style comes naturally to her. Her wordplay is generally simple but clever and effective, easily getting her meaning across. If she uses a metaphor, she makes it the focus and build up the poem around it.
Yuri tries way too hard to use a style that she feels is mature and sophisticated, and therefore "better," but she's not an experienced enough writer to use it effectively, and since it's not really her natural style any meaning her poems tends to get buried underneath the flowery bullshit she piles onto it. "The Raccoon" is easily her best poem because it breaks from her usual conventions.
Monika's poems are more intended to be direct messages to the player than expressions of herself. But her overall style is kind of like Yuri's, writing pretty out-there stuff but it's more consistent and grounded, and there's not much purple prose obscuring things.
Sayori's poems (especially Bottles) are more like Natsuki's, expressing herself through a single theme/metaphor and building the poem around it, with mostly simple language. They're not quite as direct but they still get the meaning across pretty easily, with a strong and consistent voice.

...

The only Special Poem that maybe relates to Libitina is this one, and even then it's completely redacted and unreadable in normal gameplay.
>Irregular heartbeat. Heart palpitations. Arrhythmia. I search and search, eyes scanning everything I can find on their symptoms. What is this? Shortness of breath? Chest pain? Dizziness? No. This is all wrong. Elyssa's symptoms are nowhere near this simple. I've seen it twice now. The screams of pain. Sickeningly pale skin. Vomiting blood. There is no other explanation, other than that Renier's information was a complete and utter lie.
>This can't all be coincidence. It's not possible. I don't know how much of this Renier is behind. But I do know this: There is something horribly wrong with this family. And I accepted the invitation to become a part of it.
>I can hear Elyssa's screams through the walls now. I listen helplessly. Renier said that he would be with her shortly. Is he in her room now? Why is she screaming even louder than before?
Even then this poem is the only file where either of those characters are mentioned, and there's no reference to the things directly related to Libitina like her name or the "Third Eye." If anything I'd say it's intended to be an excerpt from "Portrait of Markov." On the meta level it might have been something Dan had written on his own before the game even started development, we know he's been writing creepypasta for years and even included an old one in the game as Yuri's character file.

As to why they would include stuff like this, I'd say just to get people talking and add another layer to the unsettling meta stuff. It's straight out of a creepypasta, and these days games with "lore" are all the rage.
Some people think it's all an advertisement for Team Salvato's next project and I think that's pretty plausible, mostly thanks to that 3D head texture map in Natsuki's character file. I don't think it needs to be directly related to DDLC though.

That's the point. It's a VN for people who hate VNs.
I mean the game itself mocks the player with "but girls don't actually exist like this IRL!". It's complete normalfag schlock.