The video game Doki Doki Literature Club by Team Salvato is a game I have come to love for reasons I’ll go into after this piece. For now, I’ll just say it’s a well-written visual novel game. And I like it. A lot.

The game is a psychological horror. Another horror of mine is poetry- I’ve never quite been able to make it work. But the feelings this game has evoked in my head have bubbled to the surface in this poem- one I actually feel good about. It’s addressed to Sayori, a character I empathise with strongly. I hope you like it, but in the spirit of literature club, tell me what you think in the comments maaaaybe! Promise no drama in the responses you Yuri and Natsuki types out there!

If we were better friends

We’d have played hide and seek

Two mousy kids losing each other

All in good fun, hide then squeak

When found- you’d always disappear in places

I couldn’t discover-

you left me not one clue!

I think we’re closer now

Grown out of childhood simple-ness

Kid’s battery toys turned to cell phones

I’m texting to galvanise you to un-undress

So you can charge me up and

Drive me to go on and on

Smiling as I sigh and struggle

I’m glad we’re constant friends now

I bask in your grinning glow,

Perfect as the sun and blinding

I can barely see your scrunched blue eyes

Translucent as an empty ocean- hiding

The salted source of that colour.

Maybe if she bumps her head wrong

The dam will crack and the blue sea

Will drain as her goofy smile

Crumbles in tears

She’ll paste the bruise with a cute plaster

And plaster soaking

Hair over the gap.

She’s still hiding now.

She’s still better at hide-and seek than me.

She’s not not getting up- she’s just lazy

Four alarms and four snooze buttons tell her that.

She’s not not hungry- she’s just a big klutz

Can’t cook an egg without burning a house-

She’s so silly I cook them for her,

Sunny side up.

I wish I knew to say

Friend it’s okay to cry,

But you’d never believe me.

I wish I could grab you,

Shine like you shine- so bright

Mirror the same beam

Of joy your smile sends me.

If that would change anything.

I know it won’t.

I know that makes things much worse.

I know there’s no point wishing

I know what it’s like to

Fall away, hide in smiles

Reflecting a light that’s a

Shadow of a ghost of you.

A shiny, flat, thin mirror-

Too heavy to roll

out of that silent bed

Without shattering.

So I’ll try my best to be there

Even if you want loneliness

I don’t care, we are friends

Want to go for lunch tomorrow?

FIN

Optional little words down here:

Team Salvato have definitely contributed a shocking and eye-opening game, which achieves their goals of pushing the gauntlet of what visual novels can achieve when they look past their tropes. The deconstruction and everything can be praised much better than I can in many other outlets.

What I want to centre in on is how important I think the character of Sayori is. For those uninitiated, Sayori is portrayed as the stereotypical ‘clumsy but positive friend’ trope familiar to anyone who watches anime or plays visual novels. She is constantly late to school and relies on the player character as a friend to help her out a lot. This trope is used brilliantly in the game. She falls into it so easily- she’s optimistic, never put down by her mistakes but also passive- accepting and identifying herself as that trope, even when it’s clear she does good work when she puts her mind to it-both creatively and academically.

The turn is where this character comes into her own. Sayori made me angry at the player character of this game.

SPOILERS for Doki Doki Literature Club!!! (go play it- it’s free if you want and it’s fantastic- but listen to the warning it gives you and make sure yo are in a good place mentally before playing this game)

https://ddlc.moe/

It is revealed later in the game that Sayori suffers with depression on a regular basis. This is why she is never to school on time- she lacks motivation to get up. When this piece clicked into place, it was like a punch in the gut for me. And that’s because I strongly empathise with this character. To the point that after a scene where she explains her depression to the main character, a friend of many years who never knew, I had to take a break from the game to collect myself. It hit very close to home. And that was not a bad thing.

As our media diversifies, it’s essential we include narratives involving a wider variety of characters. When we find a character we can genuinely understand and care for it helps us explore our own feelings and understand our own history. Sayori’s depression made me examine my own bouts with that same illness and resulted in this poem. I feel like it has helped me find a little solace from the fearfulness that time in my life still evokes in me. It’s important that more and more people can have these experiences.

If anything, DDLC is a game about looking beyond the superficial assumptions we can place on both other people and our own world. Even someone you have known for years casually can be a very different person to what they project. Often, people with depression will hide away their true feelings. Like Sayori states herself, when you are suffering with depression, you feel like anyone trying to help you will be wasting their time. It’s like everything about you becomes beige porridge- not particularly worth caring about. You feel very little in this numbness, to the point that real emotion and feeling (what little you have) is scary- an intense overload that makes even the feeling of an upcoming day out with a few friends feel like an oncoming freight train. So even if someone seems like the most positive person, always be ready to look beyond that quiet little ‘I’m fine’ retort. Even just genuinely taking an interest in someone’s day can help- even if they seem like they want you to go away. It just helps them maybe realise that they are worth something- even if it’s just a few minutes of your time.

Let’s hope for more brilliant visual novels that talk about mental health (and of course psychological horror and selfaware trope characters #justmonika) in the future.

And thank you TeamSalvato (and if any of you read this, I love you and your games and yes I’m in whatever’s next!)