An amazing thing about the human experience is our ability to empathize with works of art, despite the fact that art is usually fictional. This phenomenon is the cornerstone of immersion in games, and yet somehow DDLC missed this memo.
DDLC seems at odds with itself. The first half establishes characters and presents the player with their personal struggles. The second half capitalizes on none of this, opting for cheap horror and viral moments over any actual substance. The result is, DDLC is both a shallow work of fiction, and a shallow work of metafiction.
There are plenty of great examples of metafiction in games: Umineko, OneShot, Undertale to name a few. What these games are able to do is present the player with metafiction, while still managing to get the player to care about the world. DDLC tries to contextualize its world as real, and in doing so, it fails to make me care about it
DDLC seems at odds with itself. The first half establishes characters and presents the player with their personal struggles. The second half capitalizes on none of this, opting for cheap horror and viral moments over any actual substance. The result is, DDLC is both a shallow work of fiction, and a shallow work of metafiction.
There are plenty of great examples of metafiction in games: Umineko, OneShot, Undertale to name a few. What these games are able to do is present the player with metafiction, while still managing to get the player to care about the world. DDLC tries to contextualize its world as real, and in doing so, it fails to make me care about it