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What Is Doki Doki Literature Club? Parents Warned About Horror Video Game After Teen's Death
Parents and teachers have been warned about the potential mental health risks of a cult "visual novel" video game, with one coroner saying it may "trigger suicidal thoughts" in young people.
One father, Darren Walmsley, 49, believes Doki Doki Literature Club, a free-to-play PC title that is presented with a cartoony art style but has overtones of psychological horror, may have contributed to the death of his son Ben earlier this year. Ahead of an inquest into the passing of the child, officials spoke out about the game's subject matter, which includes violence and suicide.
[...] Detective Inspector Jude Holmes, from the Greater Manchester Police, said: "We believe this game is a risk to children and young people, especially those that are emotionally vulnerable and anyone with existing mental health concerns. It's also really important to discuss with your children which games and apps are suitable, and ensure they understand why others aren't appropriate to use."
Cool story, Sherlock.
Doki Doki Literature Club! Wow, there's a Linux version. Time for another Community Review?
Also at NextShark and Manchester Evening News.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 30 2018, @02:36PM (3 children)
"We believe Life is a risk to children and young people, especially those that are emotionally vulnerable and anyone with existing mental health concerns. It's also really important to discuss with your children which coping mechanisms are suitable, and ensure they understand why others aren't appropriate to use."
(Score: 2, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday June 30 2018, @02:57PM
Shall I say, that is this a classic case of...Doke Doki Panic>
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday July 01 2018, @10:33AM (1 child)
It's not just "Life", it's $moral_panic_du_jour. I mean, it's OK to say this about jazz music, D&D, comic books, amateur dramatics, teddy boys, and heavy metal, all of which have been proven in the past to cause a general breakdown of society leading to an apocalypse-style endgame, but a fscking girly manga game with horror undertones?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @01:45AM
we don't care about no real girls, we just want dat anime pussy [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday June 30 2018, @02:38PM (2 children)
“Apparent suicide”? So it's not even clear yet whether it really was suicide?
Isn't it then a bit premature to blame the game for it?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday June 30 2018, @02:59PM
Newsweek is linked. We can argue about the root cause until we're blue in the face. But, given the source article, I can tell you who is behind that.
The Jews.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday July 01 2018, @10:49AM
Of course not. It's never too premature to start a moral panic.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tekk on Saturday June 30 2018, @02:43PM (4 children)
But still no quite there. I've actually got a friend who attempted after playing DDLC. It's not inherent in the game, it's just that any piece of media might be the nudge when you're in a bad place. She sympathized a lot with one particular character when she was in a bad spot, it didn't go well. Media that discusses topics like this would probably be more likely to set you off, but if I'm in that way and I watch Graveyard of the Fireflies that could definitely be a trigger despite it not having themes of suicide at all (though still themes of death I guess.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 30 2018, @10:11PM (2 children)
Must suck to be a thin-skinned millennial. Our grandparents did OK without safe spaces.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 30 2018, @10:39PM (1 child)
True. But the people back then who didn't do okay without safe spaces never became grandparents.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 01 2018, @12:32AM
Darwin approves.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Sunday July 01 2018, @10:20PM
Still, you probably shouldn't play it if you're not psychologically healthy, and the game even cautions you about it. No offense to your friend, but she took the Schmuck Bait. Check your SAN points before playing.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 30 2018, @02:49PM (3 children)
yet it has the typical breasted anime girl imagery and stars some dude that wants to woo them with poetry.
I expected something like "zork"
have we dropped so far that if the game isnt emoticons and guns, it's "text based" because there are dialogs? doesnt that make fallout 3 and 4 "text based" games because you have to choose dialog responses and you wear a device with words that flash on it?
(Score: 3, Informative) by tekk on Saturday June 30 2018, @04:17PM
DDLC is a visual novel. The "gameplay" is that you read text and choose responses for the vast majority of it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 30 2018, @11:29PM (1 child)
As opposed to non-breasted anime girls?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 30 2018, @11:33PM
delicious flat chest
(Score: 4, Touché) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday June 30 2018, @03:12PM (3 children)
I'll tell you, it's so fortunate that the boy only killed himself (RIP!!!!). Instead of doing a mass shooting at his school. Like so many children do after playing those VIOLENT video games. Maybe they have to put a rating system for that. So you can see, this game is very violent. The other, not so violent. And let the market decide!!! youtu.be/0C_IBSuXIoo [youtu.be]
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday June 30 2018, @03:22PM (2 children)
Life may present a lot of good reasons to kill one's self. But a goddamn video game?! HahahahhHeeheehoooooo! When I was a kid and parents weren't around, we'd draw pictures of Mario and Luigi dying, and when they were depicted as flying into the fourth wall with their legs spread, their huge boners were on display for all to see. Italians are known for their large penises.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 30 2018, @03:47PM (1 child)
Degos and large penises? I suppose, maybe, some of their girls might find large penises if they date the Slovak down the street.
Seriously, EF, Italians and large dicks? WTF did you ever hear THAT bullshit?
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 30 2018, @10:14PM
There are afro-Americans in Italy. They stayed there after liberating the country in WWII. That's probably what GP is thinking of.
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Saturday June 30 2018, @03:57PM
DDLC is implicated in a suicide and yet the crimes of Mass Effect 3 and Mass Effect Andromeda go unpunished. IF we are going to go after video games, let's at least get it right.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Saturday June 30 2018, @06:33PM (2 children)
Depression and suicide isn't its primary theme even, they're merely used in a very basic way for the first player punch to set up the atmosphere for the rest of game's fourth wall breaking mind screw. I truely laughed out loud on seeing this news item, because there are works that cover this issue at significantly greater depths in other mediums such as literature and cinema. So this makes me wonder: is this yet another instance of double standard used against video games or they'll go after works by Vladimir Nabokov, Francis Scott Fitzgerald, Jack London etc next?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 30 2018, @09:11PM (1 child)
Your typical virtual novel / dating sim is you chatting to cartoon girls in RPG-adventure-style click-your-reply-of-choice until you manage to get laid. Basically dialog heavy adventure story but without any game mechanics aside from dialog choices targeted at socially inept teens that are stupid enough to actually derive satisfaction from this sort of games.
Doki Doki Literature Club parodies this most stupid of games using a dumb twist where the resulting relationship turn abusive and the wrong sentence can end up in a suicide or murder in over-dramatized, ultra-violent humorist way. It's not even black humor we're talking about here. It's just a satire on the genre and the idiotic charterer interactions in these sort of games. Like, you're talking to one girl too much might get another one jealous resulting in murder-suicide and a "I can't live without you!" style note...
This is the old "Are you feeling depressed or having suicidal thoughts over realizing you have no savings or prospects? I am now that you mentioned it!" joke. Crazy kids.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday July 01 2018, @12:04PM
That term evoked the imagination of thoughts committing suicide … you know the situation when you have a thought, but don't immediately write it down, and then later you try to remember, but you have no idea what it was? Well, probably that thought committed suicide.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 30 2018, @07:54PM (3 children)
Well, native might be fairer. I guess he's just a normal kid grown up in a bauble. Regardless, whenever some right-wing nonsense he heard about at school or in the news comes up and I tell him it's bullshit propaganda, he never believes me. I tell him to google it. I walk him over to the wikipedia entries or some alternative coverage that's a bit more into the facts... Nothing. Like talking to a wall. Kids just parrots "Fake News!" like some kind retard. I swear if it wasn't for his straight A's I would have had his mother send him for a check up...
Anywho, brain dead as they come, right?
Well, the other night he comes telling me the news "ARE LYING AND MAKING SHIT UP ABOUT DOKI!!!". Now, sparing you the chain of events (because frankly it's tedious and boring and I'm too tired to care), there's hope for the kid yet.
So, thanks BBC! Your lies may save this nations' future yet!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday June 30 2018, @08:29PM
Sounds like he has a power level problem, and more.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 30 2018, @08:38PM (1 child)
OP is a fine example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 30 2018, @10:20PM
In what planet are you living on where people with high grade averages are bestowed with any measure of critical thinking? Good grades demonstrate ability at memorization and talent at arithmetic. They say nothing about critical thinking.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 30 2018, @08:36PM
You would have to REALLY want to die for some horror game to push you over the edge. Even if DDLC can be linked to his death he was likley gonna off himself anyways. People act lke people kill themselves for no reason.
(Score: 3, Informative) by mrpg on Saturday June 30 2018, @10:08PM (1 child)
I downloaded it, I'll try to play it today.
https://ddlc.moe/ [ddlc.moe]
And some other doki doki for you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cirhQ8iLdbw [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 30 2018, @10:23PM
Stupid game. Abominable music.
A pox on both.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by darkfeline on Sunday July 01 2018, @08:46PM
It's free. For the price, it's decent. It's got a novel concept as far as mainstream games go. I'm not saying it has never been done before. The game was developed by a single person.
The game has some horror, jump scare, fourth wall breaking, narrative depth. The music is nice. I think SN readers will find the fourth wall breaking aspects interesting.
The game is fairly short (a few hours from memory). It's almost certainly worth the time and money unless anime style art or visual novels are anathema to you.
The game is not for children and includes disclaimers about disturbing content.
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