I don’t want to see more discussions or read any guide: spoilers, careless posters, and in short, I want to experience things first hand, and not follow an engineering procedure done by others…

I would love to have some advises from experienced and mature players, without ANY spoiler of course, on how to play the game for experiencing it in the most fulfilling way.

I explain, at least I try:
Time is not an issue. I wait for another game to get more updates (Sons of the Forest, EA) …
I would like to experience all what the game has to offer: after trying for 1 hour the Free version and finding it very different from what I knew, I bought the Plus version as I think the developer deserves it.
Reaching the 1st poem after 1h (yes, I take my time…), I thought it could be nice in a play through to focus on 1 character only. 1st Sayori, then Natsuki, and 3rd Yuri. Yes, there is also Monika, but, as I reached only the 1st poem and it seems to be reaching a fork, I do not know (yet) how Monika will be included later as she is not a direct target of this 1st poem.

I try to play concurrently the 3 characters. My fear is to spoil the pleasure by going through a complete play, and feel that restarting again refocusing on another character would not have the same flavour as I would know where it goes – more or less -. When something happens, I like to see it through the eyes (brain?) of each character, one after the other, so then, for the same event, I am fully inside the atmosphere and to me it is a kind of theater with a unity of time in a “what-if” play.

I intend to play each character up to a fork, or what it seems to me like a fork.
I started by playing Sayori, until I did – after many reload - a perfect 1st poem followed by its associated scene with her unbuttoned uniform.
Then I zip the folder “LocalLow\Team Salavato\ Doki Doki Literature Club Plus” as SAYORI-01.7z and delete it. Then I play Natsuki with perfect 1st poem and stop after the same type of event i.e. scene reading the manga. Zip it and delete again the folder, and play Yuri. And then I delete the old folder, uncompress Sayori, and proceed from where I left her, in a progressive loop… etc.

BUT, before going too far, I think that my thinking is perhaps too sequential, and perhaps the game has thought about the desire of a player to experience all possible things, keeping surprises and pleasure and allowing various focuses and feelings.

In short, and sorry for my pidgin Eng, not my language…,
- Do you think my sequential and progressive loop is viable, when considering the story/game?
- Or would you advise another strategy for playing it and experience it with all its flesh?


Sorry, again, like Yuri, long bla bla, but it is a kind of filter…;)

Complete? In one playthrough?
Create one savefile before the first poem game, which doesn't get overwritten by the autosave. Then go for one girl and her entire route. After Sayori's confession, like straight after, reload this particular save and choose the next girl. Rinse and repeat until you have all the CG's in one go.
Yes, the game will recognise that you have gone the three routes. After a certain scene with Sayori on the day of the festival, proceed as you'd normally would.
This, and only this, will give you the happy, albeit bittersweet, ending.

In this version you unlock the side stories by seeing the scenes, so what you're doing would eventually lead to unlocking all of those. Stigma's explanation is on point, but it's worth noting there is a hidden "master save" file in regards to the "Skip" feature allowing you to quickly skip through dialogue you've already seen, so in your reloaded playthrough you won't be missing anything you've not seen yet by pressing the "Skip" button when available as it will auto-disable the moment you hit unseen dialogue.

It's also worth noting that there is also a "hate" condition within the game where a characters dialogue changes if you have too few things in your poems they like, potentially leading to them brushing you off completely.

2 very excellent replies!
Thank you: it is exactly what I was looking for, with no spoiler, but a methodology.

Experimenting first this "happy, albeit bittersweet, ending" is the most comfortable way for me. English is not language, but I found the wording beautiful and the psychology very sharp. Almost insidious but very clever. I like to immerse myself in an atmosphere, and I think I would be more "Yuri" style, but it is also quieter to know beforehand .
Reading some discussions, I have the feeling that some just played the game a couple of hours, and experimented only 1 quick outcome, and left the game with perhaps a brutal feeling.

After doing this. I will definitely do the counter-game using your suggestion: the "hate" condition. The play through will be more blind and instinctive, curious to experiment then with what the developer/writer imagined with all the "what-if" paths.
And excellent kind of role-playing either.

I think Spock would have said: fascinating!

You're very welcome

You need several playthoughs to fully enjoy the game. I suggest having save 1 at the first poem starting with Sayiori and loading back to that save game right before the school event and try writing to the other characters you choose. Don't worry since the output will be the same, but this is the best way to try different routes.

Also read the poem first to whoever you chose to write to (:

Something worth noting is that by doing what is suggested here will alter the original ending of the game, so it's best to first just play through normally without worrying about unlocking everything. Once you see the original ending you can go back and do all this to unlock all the Side Stories as well as see the alternate ending achieved by following these suggested steps.

Originally posted by MichelleAI:

Also read the poem first to whoever you chose to write to (:

I do that instinctively, but I'm not sure if that actually changes anything

1.play the game normally to whatever ending you'll get.
2.play again, targeting different characters by focusing on their routes until you get all their good-neutral-bad routes
3.start doing the side stories and reading the secret stuff in the game. try to complete any puzzle you found by yourself through your own logic and reasonings.
4.if you get really, really stuck on step 3 and get frustrated for not getting any progress in completing the game's secrets, its okay to look up the secrets on wiki-forumdiscussions-theoryvideos etc.
5.feel relieved and empty at the same time after you 100% the game and all its secrets while you wait for team salvato's next projects that'll continue all the ddlc cliffhangers.
6.get invested in ddlc fan-artworks-mods-fanfics to better understand the characters.