For this critical play, I played an hour of Doki Doki Literature Club (DDLC), created by independent game studio Team Salvato for Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac OS. The game is a visual novel click-through experience about a guy joining a school literature club that has multiple endings and unlockable cutscenes with each of the main characters, Sayori, Monika, Natsuki, and Yuri. There false sense of agency in your ability to make choices but the main plot elements do not change, allowing for the feminist themes to shine through. As categorized in Chapter 4 of “Play like a Feminist”, it would be considered a “casual” time-flexible game over a “hardcore game” but its unexpected psychological thriller elements and inclusion of sensitive topics and image of self-harm, suicide, and depression make it geared towards a more mature audience (male or female but most effective for advancing feminist theory if played by guys).
Argument: To play this game as a feminist is to evaluate how your player, a male protagonist, interacts in an entirely female-dominated intellectual scene, mainly the setting of a school literature club; forced into assuming this identity as a woman, I felt better positioned to evaluate the individual motivations behind my character’s stereotypically male actions and to critique how he made judgements about other characters and interacted with them. This game’s feminist narrative is unique in that your player is inexperienced about literature and writing and is thus forced into a more submissive role, learning from the female characters he surrounds himself with. Most notably, the game champions feminist theory by assigning standard female character tropes to each of the 4 characters and then gradually subverting each personality in complex ways as the story progresses, eventually touching on serious themes of self-harm and depression, turning a surface-level anime sim into unexpected psychological horror.
To begin painting DDLC as a feminist game, we have to examine the dynamics between the player and the other characters in the story. However, the feminist commentary can begin even before the gameplay starts: starting with a critique but perhaps accidental positive, you are told to choose a name before starting the story, before having any knowledge of who your character is and what they will be doing. Subsequently realizing that my character identifies as a male threw me for a loop because my feminine name then became attached to all of the male character’s actions and was used by other characters when speaking to me. I do think this dissonance made it a bit easier for me to judge the character’s stereotypical male actions towards the girls and to remove myself from the identity of who I was playing. The main character’s male identity is essential to the story’s feminist commentary, so I am not advocating for a gender switch or a “choose your own gender”. But, I do think it would have been nice to have some context before choosing a name as it is used heavily throughout the story. I also wonder about the need for even letting us choose a name in the first place. People are prone to choosing absurd and random names when given the chance which could distract from the more serious messaging.
Getting into the core of the game’s feminist commentary, your character interacts with the 4 girls of the literature club who on the surface take on different traditional personality tropes that eventually give way to more complex subversion and revealing of real, deep-seated issues and insecurities instead. The clash between their typical anime depiction (slim, tall, short skirts, etc) and their actions/personalities makes for a surprisingly nuanced commentary. Natsuki, being the youngest, is initially clocked as the cute one but it soon becomes clear that her view of boys has been mostly shaped by manga, feeding into toxic treatment of your character and the other girls, in the form of jealous remarks, assumptions about your intentions (e.g. being a pervert), and more. At one point she accuses Yuri of wearing an outfit that accentuates her chest in an effort to impress you. Monika is initially portrayed as the popular, smart, and athletic girl, a leader that the others admire for her confidence and bravery in starting a book club and dropping from the bigger, more established clubs. However, the popular good girl trope soon gives way to subtle character hints that are much more sinister under the surface. Towards the end of the first act she reveals “Don’t worry. I probably know a lot more than you think” and the later acts reveal that she is aware she is in a simulation, causing her to manipulate the others’ character traits in order to reduce their chances and earn the love of your character. Sayori, your sterotypical girl best friend from childhood is bubbly on the surface but soon reveals her lifelong depression and after rejection by your character commits suicide in her room the next day. Finally, you interact with Yuri, a seemingly shy and reclusive girl but an avid reader of horror and a transformed confident speaker when discussing philosophical and intellectual matters about literature. See below for an example of her literary commentary:
The seriousness you pay to her advice is empowering and validating for her, not because you are a man but because she rarely shares her work with others. Ultimately, while the standard female character traits and tropes are there (including major jealousy between the girls about who gets to interact with you), the complexity and thought into having both surface level and deeper personalities make for a more nuanced feminist commentary.
Beyond the dual personalities, feminist commentary and critique continue in the evaluation of your character’s motivations and actions with the girls. At the start, your character is portrayed as the stereotypical guy who is obsessed with “snagging” a cute girl and who is slightly arrogant. See the picture below in which you are “dismissive” of Sayori’s rambling.
In entering a female-dominated space centered on an unfamiliar topic to him, your character is forced into a more submissive role taking on the advice the girls have for him. While his initial motivations are very stereotypically male with intentions of joining the club solely to interact and flirt with cute girls every day, he does actually begin to improve his writing style and take on the advice of others (although it is unclear whether this is just to impress). The underlying thread of him trying to choose and “lock in” a girl remains the strongest continuous trope in the story (“good fortune will fall on me eventually”). Below is an example of an either-or scenario where I had to classically “choose” between Yuri and Natsuki.
However, judgement of his actions are strongest when he is unaware of how to handle Sayori’s increasing personality shifts and depressive spiraling, playing into the trope of guys being poor at handling emotionally charged situations and making dumb decisions at the worst times. While I don’t necessarily agree with this trope, I appreciated the inclusion of it beyond the low hanging fruit of “guy does anything to get cute girl”. The classic trope of having to choose a girl starts off innocent but is soon subverted to the extreme, forcing Sayori (the one rejected) to kill herself, making a strong commentary on both depression and on the extremes of rejection. It is the actions you make up until this tragic ending that reinforce the male trope of poor comfort skills. First, I am asked to answer if given the chance, would I keep walking home with Sayori or choose Yuri instead. Shortly after, Sayori reveals that she has had bad depression for her whole life and talks about the struggles she faces getting out of bed each morning, finding the energy to eat, go to school, etc. My character struggles to comfort her because any help I try to give her causes more pain (makes her feel like a burden) and she maintains the statement that seeing me happy with her friends in the club makes her feel happy, both common thoughts for someone who is depressed (see below).
Later, I am faced with the choice of saying “I love you” or reaffirming that we’ll only just be friends. Even on the day of her suicide, when I am going to her house to check on her, I question the situation from a male perspective e.g. “isn’t waking her up in her own house something a boyfriend would do?” In the end, I blame myself for rejecting her, for not trying harder to check up on her and handling the situation better.
I think the effectiveness of the suicide plot element is double-sided in advancing feminist theory. On one hand, it crafts a complex, multi-dimensional female character who struggles with depression and does a decent job of portraying Sayori’s struggle between outward appearance and inward mental conflict. The motivations and rationalization of why she should isolate herself from you and the others (mainly perceived selfishness and being a burden) are representative of how someone with depression might feel, and I found the drawn out discussion between her and my character and the increasing desperation to help but to no avail to be quite powerful and touching (especially since I put in my real first name). However, while I understand the angle of wanting to portray the extreme actions that can result from romantic rejection, I do worry about the message it sends to players (regardless of gender) and how it doesn’t perfectly align with the “emotionally challenged male” trope. Watching my player interact with Sayori, there were a couple of obtuse moments such as him mentioning Yuri in Sayori’s presence after learning she was depressed and not checking on her the following morning. However, he did try to understand and comfort her as best as he knew how. Beyond his two major mistakes, I don’t know how I could have comforted her better (as someone who has always struggled with giving emotional comfort). Because comforting someone who is depressed can be challenging for anyone, especially if they reject attempts at help, I am slightly wary of the fact that we are positioned to strongly blame our character for her depression which is not a very healthy outlook either and is often the cause of subsequent depression in the witness. 
From Chapter 4:
Improving the game: “traditional role-playing games are tools that activists can use to carry out “the next stage of feminist storytelling.”
