140 - Doki Doki Literature Club! (feat. Anne Huston)
Added 2024-05-29 06:00:06 +0000 UTCAnne Huston (Caveat NYC) joins Brian and Josh in getting bombarded by the twee writing, adorable anime girls, and abject existential terror of Team Salvato's 2017 dating sim/horror cult hit Doki Doki Literature Club! Along the way they talk about the appeal of fanworks, the perils of adolescence, and the mortifying ordeal of being known by a fictitious character inside a computer game.
Anne Huston is the General Manager at Caveat, a cabaret comedy theatre located on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
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Media referenced in this episode:
Doki Doki Literature Club! (Team Salvato, 2017) available on itch.io
Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! (Team Salvato/Serenity Forge, 2021) available on Steam
Undertale (Toby Fox, 2015) available on Steam
Year Walk (Simogo, 2013) available on the App Store and Steam
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem (Silicon Knights/Nintendo, 2002)
TWOAPW theme by Brendan Dalton: Patreon // brendan-dalton.com // brendandalton.bandcamp.com
Interstitial: "A Series of Updates from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority re: Dupont Circle and Farragut North Metro Stations"
Comments
I can't believe no one told the lads about Project Libitina
Saengchaen
2025-08-21 07:50:29 +0000 UTCA year late but: I am the one other guy that played through Contact. Really underrated!
Boone Pulliam
2025-03-26 19:41:43 +0000 UTCVery trippy to hear y'all talk abt my couch (Greg) and address him like a person, usually only I do that
Rko
2024-07-27 01:29:04 +0000 UTCundertale was such a great experience if you got in on the ground floor. i remain frustrated that the genocide route is obviously intended to be punishing people who play games that way but still ultimately rewards those who finish it with important lore information and a special ending. it makes the point of it ring kind of hollow to me.
BrianAlflordIsGoodActually
2024-07-16 08:30:18 +0000 UTCFantastic episode! Played the game and loved it when it came out so many years ago and I haven't really thought about it since, so this was a great Kind of surprised that there wasn't more discussion of Monika actually being obsessed with the real person playing the game and not Greg the player character. There was this line that she says when you're stuck in the netherworld with her that she doesn't even know the gender of the IRL person she's talking to cause the base game assumes the player is a straight guy.
Ben
2024-06-06 21:27:31 +0000 UTCAbsolute favorite of mine
Ben
2024-06-06 21:07:00 +0000 UTCso a comment josh made towards the beginning about making a visual novel about christian relationship repression reminded me of an old errant signal video about a game called “We Know the Devil.” I haven’t played it myself, but it sounds right up that alley. It’s about three repressed queers talking to god and the devil at a bible camp.
kegna
2024-06-02 19:21:32 +0000 UTCDoes anything happen if you make a copy of the first character that kills herself and put the copy back into the directory after it’s been deleted? I assume nothing but just curious if someone has tried it.
Ben Gialenios
2024-06-01 16:21:56 +0000 UTCThis was a great retrospective on a game that hit hard for me at the time, but which I haven't really thought about that much since then. I especially liked the point you got to near the end about how it handles the theme of treating relationships as instruments in one person's life. When I played it, I remember finding protag-kun's inner monologue really off-putting in a way that became interesting with the way he's explicitly distanced from the player and eventually discarded completely, but couldn't really articulate what made that work for me or how it applied beyond the "genre satire" lens. What you brought up there were the pieces I was missing back then. Also a funny sidenote: This game had fallen into the back of my mind so much that I didn't even consciously think about the fact that I was wearing a DDLC branded shirt while listening (the "I want breakfast" design from an Omocat collab around the peak of the hype) because it's just one nice t-shirt in my weekly rotation these days. Going for the ones with somewhat abstract designs instead of loud anime girl faces was probably the right choice.
Elaine Åhlfeldt
2024-05-31 06:29:03 +0000 UTCJoin the campaign today to let AJ force the others into playing 999 and VLR
Elaine Åhlfeldt
2024-05-31 06:13:42 +0000 UTCThe interstitial turned out to be nothing like anything I expected, but very fun in its' own right
Elaine Åhlfeldt
2024-05-31 06:12:36 +0000 UTCTechnically Ace Attorney is a series of Visual Novels.
Bryson Lambes
2024-05-30 23:18:56 +0000 UTCNeeds more Ong's Hat
Gorbant
2024-05-30 22:38:22 +0000 UTCReally good episode, but it was genuinely difficult for me to think about the game again. I played it completely blind at a point in my life where Sayori’s story hit especially hard. Only 7 years later am I actually realizing how deeply the game affected me.
AetherialPhage
2024-05-30 17:09:49 +0000 UTCi turned on the episode while in an uber without realizing my bluetooth earbuds had not paired to my phone, so my uber driver heard "cuckoldry," at full blast and chuckled about it. so thanks for that!!!
BrianAlflordIsGoodActually
2024-05-30 07:21:11 +0000 UTCSeconding Anatomy. When I bought the game it was $2.99, and one of the most affecting games I’ve ever played.
Jay
2024-05-30 07:18:19 +0000 UTCI feel like if you play enough visual novels, the VN acknowledging the different timelines and alternate paths as part of the narrative is so common, its a cliche. Especially if you're familiar with Kotaro Uchikoshi.
Sophia
2024-05-30 01:40:07 +0000 UTCThe dialogue physically engages my cringe response
John Her
2024-05-29 21:42:09 +0000 UTCDramaturgy% speedrun time 1:00:50
Lucas White
2024-05-29 21:12:52 +0000 UTCGay horror VN when?
Anne Huston
2024-05-29 21:01:04 +0000 UTCOh, also, I liked the break in this episode a lot more than AJ screaming at me about horse cum from another dimension.
David
2024-05-29 20:00:16 +0000 UTCI'm very pleased the torment continues
Anne Huston
2024-05-29 19:48:39 +0000 UTCAs a former wmata commuter, that interstitial had me triggered 😅
Crook E Crisp
2024-05-29 19:46:37 +0000 UTCDoki Doki Literature Club is a game I absolutely cannot engage with at all because of the way it not only presumes, but requires, buy in from the player on the idea of a romantic relationship with a girl as something interesting or desirable. I'm an autistic gay man. It's not. It never will and I've come to actively resent things built on a premise of "Well of COURSE you find these completely flat stock characters cute and want to date them just because they have tits and big cartoon eyes!".
David
2024-05-29 19:15:21 +0000 UTCPlease….chill air service….save me chill air service…..metro please…. Save me….
mclonergan
2024-05-29 18:59:00 +0000 UTCPop that kernel? 🪇👉🧸?
Evan Hawkins
2024-05-29 18:37:21 +0000 UTCIf none of these names mean anything to you, then you might still see the light of heaven. Go with God.
Dergon
2024-05-29 18:34:35 +0000 UTCThe Company of Myself was about a death of a spouse/mental health. I remember playing that in like middle school and it really hit me
Elias
2024-05-29 18:13:12 +0000 UTCwe look forward to her patronage
The Worst of all Possible Worlds
2024-05-29 17:58:40 +0000 UTCI think I just turned my coworker onto your podcast. She's an actor, and when I told her that part of what you cover is this evangelical children's radio drama, she actually said "Oh my god, is it 'Adventures in Odyssey?'"
Clarp Blarpkiss
2024-05-29 17:27:12 +0000 UTCI used to be a fan of most of them years ago. I'm pretty sure Peanut Butter Gamer and Brutalmoose are still just guys making silly videos online.
Dergon
2024-05-29 16:43:38 +0000 UTCOH MY GOD! Just hit with memories of Asagao Academy, the dating sim/VN where you date weabified versions of IRL Gaming YouTubers, the Normal Boots boys! Back before all the drama and grooming and racism and money stealing was out.
Dergon
2024-05-29 16:41:29 +0000 UTCWonder if the creator was inspired by Giffany from Gravity Falls 🤔
Dergon
2024-05-29 16:18:35 +0000 UTCI was not expecting this one
Yura
2024-05-29 15:57:22 +0000 UTChaven’t started watching this yet, just wanna say I’m terrified of whatever the ad is going to be.
kegna
2024-05-29 15:06:03 +0000 UTCwe eatin good today girls also, if I may add a suggestion: it strikes me that you would like Signalis. It's very strongly horror, acknowledges the media that inspired it in a subtle way, has amazing worldbuilding, and an absolutely tragic story. The player choices matter, but there are no choices directly presented; rather, the way that the player interacted with the game determines the ending they receive.
LucindaCordelia
2024-05-29 14:28:07 +0000 UTCIf you like scary games to not have death as a mechanic I suggest looking into the work of Kitty Horrorshow on Itch, most of her games are free but the stand out is Anatomy which I think is under $5. It’s short, though you’ll want to play it through a few times.
Amy Godliman
2024-05-29 13:38:24 +0000 UTCFinally, some real fucking culture
Noblesse Oblahaj
2024-05-29 12:54:17 +0000 UTClondondere
Max Johansson
2024-05-29 12:37:24 +0000 UTCsee i remembered this game came out in 2017 because EYE played it in college! our video gaming club booted it up at like, 8pm on a sunday. we had it projected on a smartboard, and it was a slow playthrough bc we were doing the voices. as the hours ticked by, more and more people began peeling off and going to bed until it was just me and two other girls, sitting in the middle of a darkened classroom at 1am, screaming & clutching each other as monika slowly materialized
Peter Paul Rubens' Muse
2024-05-29 11:32:03 +0000 UTCas someone who's probably deeper in the visual novel community (my vndb page linked https://vndb.org/u185013/ulist?f=&l=2&mul=0&s=3q2w), my perspective is probably pretty skewed, but while i like ddlc a good bit, i think its less revolutionary than a lot of people act like it is. i dont get the sense that salvato had actually played *that* many visual novels before making ddlc, and i think as a result some of what the game tries to do ends up missing for me, because i don't think it speaks to vns as much as maybe it thinks it is? i also think that, frankly, kimi to kanojo to kanojo no koi came first and did the premise better (although to my knowledge it wasnt translated to english until after ddlc came out). exciting to see ddlc discussed on here tho! would love to see other visual novels be discussed in the future, as unlikely as that may be. we know the devil and heaven will be mine would both make for very interesting discussions, and are about the same length if not shorter than ddlc
wyliewb13
2024-05-29 09:49:29 +0000 UTCOh dear, if it isn't cute media with a gut wrenching twist and suffering. My favourite! .
Josep C.
2024-05-29 09:21:43 +0000 UTCloved this as always!! utterly besides the point, but you guys should play Indika - very, very *your* shit vis-a-vis faith (orthodox catholicism), declining empire (devs are Russian exiles), and general profound oddness
HJC
2024-05-29 08:30:04 +0000 UTCOh my. Now this is a blast from the very recent, yet distinctly past. I'm scared to find out what you're doing for an interstitial with this game, but here we go!
Elaine Åhlfeldt
2024-05-29 06:26:52 +0000 UTC
