Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!

There's an age-old idiom that warns to never judge a book by its cover, because after all, things might not be what they first seem. Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! is a perfect example of this. On the surface, this seems like your standard, garden variety anime dating sim themed visual novel. The player jumps right into the role of a new member to the high school Literature Club, where they immediately gain the affection of three of the club's other members. There's some cute flirting and such, with everything seeming relatively innocent outside of a couple lines of risqué innuendo. But it's not long before there's a bait-and-switch, and the game spirals down into a dark abyss of depression, obsession, jealousy, and death. And that's just for starters. Things quickly shift gears, taking the focus away from the player's in-game character and instead focusing on the actual player.

As the game progresses, you're forced to restart multiple times, with apparent glitches and bugs popping up along the way. The original PC release required players to leave the game and alter installation files on their systems, something that's not only risky to do on the computer, but impossible in a console environment. DDLC Plus! solves this problem by creating a fake desktop environment for players, including a music player, picture viewer, and email program. While not as immersive as altering actual computer files, it's made up for with new creepy additions like mystery text and data files or random emails getting added to the experience. Other additional content in Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! includes six new side stories that serve almost as a prequel to the main game, detailing the lives of the club members leading up to their coming together. These add another layer to the characters' personalities, making their fates all the more disturbing. And that's both the ultimate appeal of and repulsion to Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! It's a creepy and unsettling experience on a psychological level, fuel for nightmares on an emotional level that's nothing remotely like it first appears.