i was always told by my english teachers that a summary is a paragraph maximum. if you wanted this definition, here you go.
"Doki Doki Literature Club is a psychological horror visual novel masking as a dating simulator, centering around a boy joining a literature club. He has various choices on which girl to court, however it is futile in the end as Monika, aware of her status in a video game, has grown fondly jealous of the player. She sabotages and deletes her fellow clubmates to make herself an option to you throughout several acts where the game grows more glitched and disturbed. Despite this, she realizes the weight of her actions and decides to end this vicious cycle once and for all."
however, of course, i was never good at summaries. so please join me in my walkthrough of the entire game.
want a description of the side stories? that's here!
you begin the game as your nameable protagonist, your player character (who i will be referring to as either mc or (the) player in this) walking to school, just about to encounter a titular character. sayori, childhood friend to him and running quickly behind the player. she is running late and banter ensues between the two. she brings up clubs, wanting him to join one. he isn't fond of the idea of joining a club, perfectly content spending his free time playing video games and watching anime. however, he just can't say no to her face, so he agrees to atleast look at a club or two.
the game continues after school has ended, and he is thinking about what club to join. anime club is his immediate choice, however sayori waltzes in and convinces him to join her club that she's the vice president of, the literature club, with an argument that she might have already told the club members that he was guaranteed in joining the club. the player, despite this, does end up going with sayori to check out her club. he is greeted to the face of three, to quote him, incredibly cute girls.
natsuki, a short younger looking member of the club, had made cupcakes in preparation for the arrival of this new member. inherent to her stubborn nature, she denies this. the player is introduced by sayori to the other two girls in the club, yuri, a timid girl with a passion for literature and.. that's about it, and monika, whom he already knew. she was a former leader of the debate club, leaving after all the arguments got too much to instead peruse creating a space for something she personally enjoyed, literature.
the typical ending is not the only ending you can get. there are two others.
the "quick ending", in which you delete monika's character file before act 1 begins, causing sayori to realize her status inside of a video game and beg for it to stop. the game will then crash, and if you reopen the game you will notice everyones character files are gone and it displays a black screen with the END text. afterwards, it will shift into a white screen with a grayscale image of sayori hanging. if you sit there and wait for about 10 minutes, text will appear next to sayori (in her handwriting), "now everyone can be happy." you can also skip sayori's realization if you also delete her character file alongside monika.
the "good ending." you obtain this ending by seeing every cg. you can do this by making a save file on the very first poem you make, and write one for any character. you continue that character's route until you get to the line, "i gently open the door." (this is the last line before you see sayori's death, which locks you into act 2.) you then go back to your save file, and do a different character's route by writing poems for them. you do this until you get to the last character's route (monika not included), after which you continue the game as normal. be careful to not delete monika immediately, as her cg in act 3 is also required. continue the game, and when monika restarts the game without herself (act 4), sayori will thank you for trying to make everyone happy, and the credits will roll. none of the cgs will be deleted on the pc version. you will then get a letter from dan salvato, the developer himself, detailing why he made the game and a couple other tidbits.
