Oh thank god Moni- I mean I have finally given myself access to my computer again! I started playing DDLC as a joke during a sleepover on March 13th, 2022. My gf (who is now my ex sob) had it on their PS4 and I had an idea of what it was, and I found it funny. I just knew it as the horror game disguised as a dating sim. I thought it was a weird game so I played it 'jokingly' with them. We ended up playing it for 12 hours straight, making silly voices for the characters and reading til' the text looked green. They took a nap and since my brain was in hyperfixation mode, I couldn't sleep. I spent that hour of their nap on my phone reading up on easter eggs and different endings we could get. I accidently woke up them up and I remember clearly kissing them and immediately after asking "Wanna play DDLC?" and they nodded. Then a bit after that we got to the part where Yuri was uh totes not dead and we could hear sounds in the kitchen, meaning their grandparents were up. I told them how I didn't know how we would even explain what was on screen. We ended up finishing it later that morning and continued playing in order to try to 100% it. I played until I couldn't read anymore because I was so tired. Leading to a nice nap which was interupted by me having to go home. It was a wonderful day.
This game, though being a horror (I can say that right? Ok.), has taught me a lot about how to care for myself and others. Usually horror media does this for me, but what has this game taught me you might be asking? Well, it's taught me many coping mechanisms and how to respect myself more. It taught me that I'm human and so are the others around me, and that we all just want to be happy. I learned that I could love myself, as I love Yuri and Natsuki, two characters I see a lot of myself in. I know they see themselves in eachother as well, and they love eachother! So in a time when I hated myself I could see their love for eachother and thought "Maybe I can do that too." It also got me back into writing! It was an abandoned hobby of mine for awhile. I started writing poems because of this silly game HAHAHAH. They're very amateur I think but my gf at the time liked them and I liked writing them so that's all that matters. I also started to get back into literature as a whole, another thing that I had put down over the years. I know this game is just a scary game to some people but it means so much to me and helped out my mental health a lot. I guess that's why they say "Art comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable." I also didn't get into it young like a lot of people did back when it came out because I was very late to the party so that may be it too.
I love this game with my whole heart!
Times Replayed:
Hours Played (On Steam):
Devices Played On:
Shortest Time to 100%:
