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• 1 2023-11-29T16:03:26+00:00 Tanishq's Page 5 2 plain 2023-12-08T07:52:34+00:00 The game's message to the player is simple: the world's job isn't to provide happiness to everyone. After the third playthrough, Act 4 begins, where Sayori is back and Monika, who had been the cause of all the previous negative events, was now responsible for stopping Sayori from making the same mistakes she did. The only solution she can find is to return the world back to null, sending the player back to Act 1. While she does this, she leaves a message for the player. She refuses to let her friends go through the same epiphany she has, that the world isn't kind, but evil, and that all of her friends who suffer from different mental health conditions: Yuri suffering from self-harm, Natsuki suffering from domestic abuse from her father, and Sayori struggling with severe depression, all deserve help, and should not be suffering in the way they do. The game wants the player to realize that everyone is going through their own incredibly deep struggle, and that no matter if the world ignores them, they still do not deserve to suffer. Bonnie Ruberg makes the argument that feeling empathy in games isn't actually possible, and that games that try to make the player feel that are fundamentally flawed, but I strongly disagree. Throughout all 4 acts in Doki Doki Literature Club, the player's raw emotions have you actually connected to the characters, playing from the first person and being forced to watch as all the girls suffer as you are unable to do anything about it. DDLC is a perfect example of a game that steps away from this idea that games cannot make the player feel empathy, and actually brings out important emotions in the player.