- Doki Doki Literature Club - Secrets Guide Written by Momorin / Oct 13, 2017 Don't read this until you've finished the game and had the true literature club experience!
- Doki Doki Literature Club is 100% free to play, but you are welcome to contribute any amount you'd like. Contributing $10 or more will reward you with the DDLC Fan Pack! Just click the Download button and contribute a payment of $10 or more to unlock the Fan Pack.
In the end, even if Doki Doki Literature Club! Contains a few upsetting concepts and depressing scenes, it’s definitely uplifting most of the time. Thus, it can be a great way to change your mood for the better in a matter of minutes. Visual novel Adventure game Interactive story Novel Adventure Literature Club.
Don't read this until you've finished the game and had the true literature club experience! This is a guide for players who are looking to see everything they missed the first time. Contains spoilers and won't help first time players.
Other DDLC Guides:
- Walkthrough (Girl Guide).
- Monika Ending.
- How to Unlock Monika's Bonus Route.
Introduction
So, hopefully you've had the Literature Club experience by this point. You haven't seen everything until the end credits roll, so make sure you've gotten that far before reading this. If not, turn back now--this guide won't be of much interest to you. It won't help you and won't make much sense. Contains spoilers, of course.
Are we ready for this?
This is a guide to finding little things that you may have missed. To see all the dialogue, a special ending, and other events of interest. It also explains a little bit of how things work, but won't be very specific on most details so you can experience them for yourself.
It covers every major secret that exists inside the game, but may have a few minor omissions. It doesn't tell you how to get all of the CGs, what to do when you have choices to make, or how to progress through the game.
Secret Messages
Throughout parts of the game, there will be little files created in the game folder that you can open and look at. These get deleted later on, so it's a good idea to keep the game folder open if you want to see them. The first of these is an image file created on the morning of the festival. After that, there will be some text files created, with messages presumably from Monika.
You may remember a scene where you see an error message on the screen that an exception has occurred. It actually creates a real error report file in the game folder which will contain a bit of dialogue, also from Monika.
Doki Doki Literature Club Story
The character files and some other messages are codes containing interesting things when deciphered, but if you want to learn more about that, you can visit this discussion on Reddit.Sharing Poems, Arc 1
I won't cover how to play the poem minigame here, but based on the words you pick, each girl will either love your poem, hate it, or think it's just okay, and there are a number of variations based on their evaluations. This is how to see all of them.
Natsuki
Day 2 (3 variations)
- She has a different opinion about all three types of poems.
Day 3 (7 variations)
- If she hated both of your poems, she becomes angry and refuses to share hers. If she hates just this one, she will act disappointed in you.
- If your poem is okay, she will compare it to your previous one, with three separate dialogues.
- If she loved both of your poems, she becomes embarrassed, and eventually wants to keep it. If she only loved this one, she will tell you how she had low expectations for you before.
Day 4 (7 variations)
- If she hated both of your previous poems, she won't talk to you or share her poem no matter what you write. Otherwise, if you write a bad poem, she has two different dialogues based on whether she hated one of your previous poems or not.
- If your poem is okay, she compares it to yesterday's. If yesterday's was also okay, she says that, otherwise she just says she doesn't hate it.
- If she loved all three of her poems, you get her dialogue leading up to her special poem for you. If you've never written one that she loved up to this point (unless she hated both), she has dialogue expressing her surprise.
Yuri
Day 2 (2 variations)
- If she loves your poem, she'll tell you. Otherwise, she just has a hard time deciding what to say. In both cases she gives you the same writing advice.
Day 3 (6 variations)
- If she hated both of your poems, she asks if you're mad at her and won't show you her poem. If she just hated this one, she asks about whether you are influenced by Natsuki and Sayori.
- If your poem is okay, she will either compare it to yesterday as an improvement, or tell you it's pretty good.
- If she loves your poem, she has two sets of dialogue that are almost identical except for one line about how she feels appreciated.
Day 4 (6 variations)
- If she hated your last two poems she won't talk to you no matter what. If she just hated one of your previous poems and hates this one, she'll get upset and won't show you her poem.
- If this is your first time giving her a poem that she hates, she remarks about how you decided to try something different. She does this also if she loved both your previous poems and you gave her one that was merely okay.
- If you give her a poem that's okay and she didn't love both of them, she remarks on your improvement.
- If you give her a poem she loves, she has two different dialogues depending on whether she loved both of your previous ones or not.
Sayori
Day 2 (3 variations)
- She has separate dialogue for each type of poem.
Day 3 (6 variations)
- If you write a poem she hates, she has one dialogue where she talks about liking happy and sad things.
- If your poem is okay, she compares it to yesterday's, with three dialogues.
- If she loves both of your poems, she talks about you writing it for her, otherwise, she says it's better than yesterday's.
Day 4 (2 variations)
- If she loves all three of your poems, she talks about you giving her all the attention, otherwise she accuses you of writing your poem for one of the other girls.
Monika
- Monika has 9 dialogues. You can see them all by writing a poem for the same girl three days in a row, for each of the other girls.
Sharing Poems, Arc 2
The second day is basically the same as the first arc. There is a random event related to Natsuki (see random events below).
Natsuki
Day 3 (5 variations)
- If she hated both of your poems, she become even more upset than she did in the first arc. If she just hated this one, she only acts disappointed.
- If you write a poem she loves or one that's okay, she considers the poem just okay. She responds in three different ways depending on your previous poem. However, if you wrote a poem she (secretly) loved, she will follow up by becoming upset that you didn't spend time with her, and you will see the Natsuki ghost scene.
Day 4 (6 variations)
- If you write a poem she hates, she responds in three different ways depending on whether she hated both, one, or none of your previous poems.
- Again, she will only consider your poem okay at best in her dialogue. If she hated both your previous poems, she responds as though she hates this one too. Otherwise she compares it to whether she hated the previous day's poem or not.
- If you gave your poem to Yuri already, she reacts in disgust.
Yuri
Day 3 (3 variations)
- She will never hate your poem. If it was okay or bad, she awkwardly tells you how good it is.
- If you wrote a poem she loves, she has two dialogues that are almost identical except for one line depending on her opinion of your previous poem.
Day 4
- She always thinks your poem is wonderful no matter what. Once you show it to her, she won't give it back, which affects Natsuki's dialogue.
Just Monika
Monika's dialogue follows two paths depending on who your first poem appealed to. On the second day, she makes condescending remarks about the girl who liked your poem the most. On the third day, she either greets you warmly and starts the first discussion about Yuri if on the Natsuki route, or tells you that you saw something you shouldn't have on the Yuri route. On the fourth day, she shows a glitch poem if on the Natsuki route, or dismisses you with one line if on the Yuri route.
The glitch poem is different if you're on Windows and in fullscreen mode.
Random Events
In the second arc of the game, there are a number of scenes that happen only some of the time. This will make every playthrough a little bit different. Here are the list of things you might see.
Special poems
The special poems you get are decided in advance for each playthrough. There are 11 of them, and 3 are chosen at random. You'll have to play a few times before you see them all in the game.
Splash screen
You might get a different message instead of the usual 'this game is not for children...' (1/4 chance). Some of these are funny.You might also get a creepy version of the menu where the characters are in black and white (1/64 chance, once per playthrough).
First day
After Monika brings you to the classroom, you might get glitch Monika (1/3 chance)Beginning on the first day, you might get a special classroom background with Sayori. This can change during the days at various points, too, but there's a 1/6 chance each time.
Second day
If you wrote a poem that Natsuki hates, her eyes might pop out for a few seconds (1/3 chance).
Third day
Yuri might be broken on the screen when she appears (1/3 chance).Natsuki might suddenly have a weird moving realistic mouth as she says several nonsense words as black text (1/4 chance).After you get a special poem, the game screen might become red and distorted and the music will be altered to give you a sense of dizziness (1/3 chance) or you might get a special Sayori-themed mouse cursor (1/3 chance).
Fourth day
At the beginning of the day, you might see an distorted image of Sayori's face. This has a 1/16 chance of occurring, but only if you didn't see the Sayori eyes image during the poem minigame the previous night (see below).
Poem minigame
You might see a drawing of Sayori with scary blank eyes after you finish the poem each day (1/6 chance, once per playthrough).
End of days 2 and 3 - you might see a glitch text word (1/401 chance per word). None of the girls like these. If you click one, some weird things start to happen to the graphics and sound. There is a 1/11 chance of hearing a girl say 'ba' when you click on a word after this, once per playthrough.
End of day 3 - Monika sticker hops from off the bottom of the screen (1/11 chance). It still counts for whoever normally likes the word.
Ghostly Yuri sticker hops when you pick her word (1/101 chance, once per playthrough).
Second Arc Minor Details
At the end of day 3, during the poem minigame, take a look at Yuri's sticker, particularly her arms.
On day 4, you'll be given a choice of who to help. It's difficult to not choose Monika, but if you manage to choose one of the others, you'll see a special screen with Yuri's eyes to make sure you pick Monika.
During the nice weekend with Yuri, she has 1,440 lines. They doesn't mean anything, though there will be a long and familiar block of text in the history. If you quit the game and restart, you'll be taken forward to the next panel of her scene.
Monika's Room Details
She has different dialogue depending on what platform you're playing on to tell you where the character files are. You'll probably see the one for Steam since you're reading this.
If you're running either OBS or XSplit to record the game, Monika will perform a prank to scare you.
If you're not streaming, Monika will check to see if your character's name is different from the one on your computer. She has some dialogue if this is the case.
Monika has 54 conversation topics, though you won't see one if you didn't see her glitch poem by going down Natsuki's route during the second act. You'll see each one before they repeat, at which point, you'll get the skip option. Try using it for a special message. She also has a message if you try to save, and several if you quit and restart.
Another Ending?
There are two basic endings to the game that depend on whether you've seen all of the CGs or not, but there is another, depressing way you can end your game.
If you've started a new game, but haven't reached the part where you enter Sayori's room the second time, deleting Sayori's character file will make the game end in static as soon as it starts up, then a sad picture and text appear.
Starting a new game with Monika's character file deleted will upset Sayori, and she will delete everyone and shut down the game, leading back to the aforementioned ending.
Save Files
You may notice that the game doesn't store saves in its saves folder. Where they actually are depends on your platform, but should you try copying a save to protect it from deletion and then load it later on, you might just get scolded by Monika for cheating.
End
And that's basically it! There are a few minor variations based on poem order that aren't covered, but you should be able to find those easily.
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- All Doki Doki Literature Club Guides!
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A simple guide on how to achieve the best ending including the developers note that comes with it.
Spoilers ahead!
Introduction
Before anything else you must realize that this guide contains major spoilers and would ruin the experience for someone who has not already played the game. Seriously go play it blind first!
So you either have completed a blind run of the game (and you really want closure and for everyone to be happy), or you just want to get the best ending. Well, I created this guide for the purpose of helping other players make everyone in the literature club happy!
My experience: I did a blind run of the game, no save reloading or anything just balls out making decisions and I ended up with the usual ending that one receives after a straight playthrough, which can be summed up as Just Monika, everyone else had been deleted and I didn’t really know what to do from there and the game messed with my head. Next I will talk about how to begin your playthrough to actually beat the game instead of getting Monika in some void or whatever.
Step #1 – Fixing the Broken Game
Skip if you already have a clean game ready to play or have not played it yet.
Now if you ended up with the Just Monika ending then this will be important for you, but if you already have a fresh game ready then you can ignore this section.
If this is your situation, then evertime you launch the game it will place you in the room with Monika and there isn’t really anything you can do about it because you are not able to access the main menu. However you don’t need to reinstall the game or whatever it’s very simple to fix this and get back to the start of the game. It requires a bit of file work though. First you must go to your DDLC steam folder (which can be accessed by right clicking Doki Doki Literature Club in your Games Library, clicking Properties, Selecting Local Files on the top bar, and selecting Browse Local Files). From here you must enter the folder labeled “game” and locate the file “firstrun.” Throw out firstrun and upon launching the game a second time you will be prompted to start a new game and find yourself at the main menu of a clean DDLC game hooray.
Now you can begin the new playthrough.
Step #2 – Sayori Run
The way to achieve the dev’s special ending is to get all of the cutscenes for each character Now that you have a clean game you may now start a new one. If you have already played the game blindly and wish to skip all the dialogue that you have already seen, then you can go into the settings and set it so that you are able to skip unseen dialogue as the new game is not aware that you have read all of this already. Now you will be playing three different runs of the game. This first run you will appeal to Sayori. Make sure that the words you select in the poem minigame appeal to Sayori, there are other guides showing which words appeal to Sayori, but it is easy enough to choose words that are bittersweet. Your goal in this first playthrough is to achieve all of Sayori’s special scenes. There are three in total for each character. The first two are achieved by writing your poems for her and the last one must be achieved by selecting the option to confess your love to Sayori.
It does not matter who you decide to help prepare for the festival here as you will be prompted to confess to Sayori either way as she always will come over afterwards.
Doki Doki Literature Club End Music
In the end, even after you confess your love to her and get the third cutscene, Sayori’s death scene will always occur no matter what, this scene breaks your game. Every playthrough you do, you must get the three cutscenes and right before you are confronted with the scene of Sayori’s death, you must go to the menu and start a new game. The game still remembers if you viewed the cutscenes so starting a new game is not an issue. Now you are one third of the way done 🙂
Step #3 – Natsuki Run
This run you will do pretty much the exact same way you did Sayori’s except you will be appealing to Natsuki. Select words for your poems like “fluffy” and “cute” to get all of the cutscenes with Natsuki. You must view the first two cutscenes, and any time you are given choices you must appeal to Natsuki. The third cutscene with Natsuki must be achieved by choosing to help her prepare for the festival. You will bake the cupcakes and get the third and final cutscene with Natuski here. The same events will play out afterwards with Sayori coming over and you being prompted to confess to her. This option does not really matter anyways because she will, as stated earlier, always kill herself.
Again, when you reach the point where you go to check on Sayori to find that she is dead, do not view this scene. Simply start a new game before this scene just as you did before.
Step #4 – Yuri Run
Now that you have gotten the 3 cutscenes for Sayori, and the 3 cutscenes for Natsuki, you just need to get the 3 for Yuri. Yuri’s first two cutscenes must be achieved by writing your poems for her, just like the others. Once you get these two cutscenes you must select her to help prepare for the festival. This run is pretty much identical to Natsuki’s as when she comes over you will get the third cutscene, and once again Sayori will come over afterwards and give you the same choices as before. These choices do not matter as usual and will not impact the outcome of the game, however you will not start a new game this time, instead you will have to go through the scene of sayori’s death..
Step #5 – Playing the Now Broken Game with Sayori Missing
After you view Sayori “hanging out” in her room you will be back at the main menu and Sayori’s character will be all glitched. You then select to continue rather than start a new game. This section of the game, which is after Sayori’s death, will always play out the same. It will just be the same exact story except Sayori will not be existent and the a bunch of bad stuff will happen, making the characters go crazy. The decisions you make from this point on in the game do not matter as they always end with Monika deleting the other two girls, and giving them the same fates as Sayori (her first victim). You will end up with the Just Monika scene in some void like atmosphere just as you did before, however now that you have “collected” all 9 of the individual character cutscenes you are now worthy of receiving the wholesome ending. Go to your DDLC game folder just as you did before, and go to the characters folder. You will notice that now that the only file in that folder is Monika’s character file, making it easy to click on it and throw it away. Yes, you gotta throw away Monika to get the good ending. Now when you return to the game Monika will be broken and she will have some dialogue for you. After you get through this dialogue the game will bring you to the main menu, but Monika is missing from the game now. You will start a new game and it will play out pretty normally then.
The Ending
Now that you are playing the game without Monika, it will play out pretty nice and you will have to go through some dialogue to get to the final scene, where Sayori will talk to you and it will be all sad and the credits will roll. Afterwards you will hear Monika’s song and then the game will pretty much destroy itself in the console and you will be left with the developers note on the screen. Upon closing and relaunching the game, you just get the dev note again and the game is broken again. The deleting of “firstrun” can fix this if you want to play again and do some more experimenting.
This is what should happen if you do everything correctly and view all 9 cutscenes.
However, if at the end you talk to Sayori and she says some really yandere stuff and basically becomes like Monika and the game starts glitching then you must have missed a cutscene. You are able to see which cutscene you missed by viewing the end credits and each picture that rolls will be a cutscene. The cutscenes that you have viewed will be colored and the ones you haven’t will be black and white. If you missed any of the cutscenes you won’t get the correct ending and the game will get all messed up again and that’s no fun right?