How Doki Doki Literature Club! Was Made and Why it Will Never be Adapted

How Doki Doki Literature Club! Was Made and Why its Release Made the Creator Miserable

This Doki Doki Literature Club! documentary details the development of the visual novel indie game Doki Doki Literature Club! and goes behind the scenes of its creation. Discover more about its creator Dan Salvato and how he went from being a professional Super Smash Bros. Melee Link player to being a public face of an enormously popular brand overnight. Growing up, Dan watched a lot of anime, with a particular fondness for slice-of-life anime. His journey into visual novels began in college, starting with “Tsukihime”, which left a lasting emotional impact on him. While Dan was busy working on his first visual novel, he got the idea for a very different visual novel concept. He eventually shared the idea with his friend Masha, who convinced Dan to develop it.

The documentary also explores all the design decisions that Dan made and shows how he initially envisioned the characters with generic cookie-cutter personalities. However, as he delved into the writing process, he felt an unexpected urge to connect with them on a deeper level. It also takes a close look at all the hurdles Dan had to go through. From programmatically stitching together characters “halves” that resulted in a wide variety of characters sprites, to Dan creating the soundtrack himself in order to infuse the game with simple, catchy melodies and recurring motifs. Additionally, Dan had to manipulate the game’s engine with his own Python code since the engine was designed to prioritize player control, which is the opposite of what Dan was trying to achieve with Doki Doki Literature Club! Lastly, the documentary also takes a look at what’s next for Dan and if we’ll see more Doki Doki Literature Club! related content in the future.