Doki Doki Blue Skies is a Game Mod for Doki Doki Literature Club! and is designed to be played only after the official game has been completed. As such, the mod and this page both contain unmarked spoilers for the official game.
Doki Doki Blue Skies
is a mod which overhauls the Visual Novel Doki Doki Literature Club! into a more conventional experience without the meta horror but maintains a strong focus on mental health. It is inspired by Katawa Shoujo's sincere portrayal of disabilities with a variant of Emi appearing as a supporting character. The main character (simply called "MC" by the mod developers) seeks to woo the club member of his choice while they struggle with their personal issues. The choices MC makes have a significant impact on the mental health and personal life of his chosen partner for better or worse. It is technically an eroge with two H-scenes but these can be deactivated.
The personalities of the Literature Club girls have been greatly expanded beyond the stereotypes presented in the original game and have complex relationships with each other that change depending on who MC falls in love with and the choices he makes. In addition to the Literature Club, MC is given a proper personality, Monika is changed from her original hidden yandere personality and there are some new characters:
- MC: A snarky Jerk with a Heart of Gold who joined the Literature Club to stop himself from becoming a lonely shut-in.
- Monika: Founded the Literature Club, after getting fed up with the Debate Club, as an escape from her tough daily routine. She is a level-headed model student.
- Akechi Sakurai: A relatively young, passionate history teacher with a witty sense of humor that makes him popular with his students. He is MC's homeroom teacher and MC looks up to him as a mentor.
- MoMC: MC's unnamed mother who works abroad. She shares MC's sense of humor but is very perceptive and insightful, giving MC valuable advice in his high school crises.
- Emi: A 100% Genki Girl transfer student who is part of the track team. She provides relationship advice for MC.
- Shiori: MC's class rep and close friend of Monika. She shuns traditional roles but is diligent in her classwork.
The game comprises three arcs with the first roughly following the same story of the original with MC writing poetry to flatter the girl of his choice and joining one of them for the preparations for the festival at the weekend. After this, the story is expanded to cover the rest of the academic year with three distinct stories for Sayori, Natsuki and Yuri.
In February 15th of 2022, an official collaboration with Friday Night Funkin' mod Doki Doki Takeover! was announced, with the latter game getting unlock-able Blue Skies costumes for the main cast in the final update.
The game contains examples of following tropes:
- Abusive Parents:
- After her mother's death, Natsuki's father struggled with their store business and was driven to alcoholism by the stress. This then lead to him beating Natsuki and she also suffers from the poverty. Like in the original game, he also doesn't approve of Natsuki's manga interests. If the player makes too many bad decisions, Natsuki's father beats her to death.
- Monika's parents are effectively forcing her to take too many extracurricular activities and cram school against her will to try and groom her into succeeding them in running their family business. Heck, they called her human garbage when she said she wasn't going to take over the family business. Monika founded the Literature Club as an escape from her otherwise stressful life.
- Adaptational Heroism: Monika. See Cool Big Sis.
- Adorably Precocious Child: MC and Sayori were this in one flashback scene, when they decide to get married while being too young to understand what it actually is. Mom even lampshades it and gives relationship advice.
- Adults Are Useless: Downplayed in this mod. Mom and Sakurai provide valuable advice to MC but there is only so much they can do when MC or other students aren't honest with them.
- Amicable Exes: The MC and Natsuki in her "neutral" endings.
- Bittersweet Ending: One of Natsuki's endings has Natsuki breaking up with MC (who ends up dating Sayori), but no one comes to harm. It ends with Natsuki taking over the Literature Club when the rest graduate, turning it into the Manga Club.
- But Thou Must!: Base game Monika realizes you installed a mod when you start a new game and asks if you intend to seek happiness. If you answer no, the game closes.
- Central Theme: Dating sim characters living daily lives beyond "saving" love interests.
- Childhood Friend Romance: This mod allows you to fulfill this with Sayori. However, even if you choose Natsuki or Yuri, others wonder why you're not going out with Sayori. In Natsuki's Bittersweet Ending, MC ends up with Sayori anyway after breaking up with Natsuki.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Deconstructed. MC going out of his way to push quick fixes ends badly. Monika also warns him against it in Natsuki's route.
- Collector of the Strange: The mod goes into more detail about Yuri's knife collection, including a Spanish dagger and Nepalese kukri.
- Continuity Nod: Played for Drama. In Sayori's route, Sayori's hypothetical about Yuri asking to walk home with MC becomes less of a hypothetical when Yuri actually asks to walk home with MC.
- Cool Big Sis: Monika plays a more comforting role in Blue Skies without her original Medium Awareness, especially in Yuri's good ending where Monika is implied to help Sayori with her depression similar to MC helping in Sayori's good ending.
- Curse Cut Short: In the argument between Natsuki and Yuri on the second day, Natsuki almost calls Yuri a bitch before Sayori interrupts.
- Dark Reprise:
- Initially during the festival, the track "Festival!" plays. But when things start going wrong, it is replaced by "Festival?", a more off-key version of the former track.
- "Family Bonds", Mom's leitmotif, has a sadder variant called "Broken Bonds" that plays when Mom talks to MC after the argument with Yuri on White Day and right before Sayori's bad end.
- "Rose Tinted Glasses" is a cute, nostalgic melody that plays during flashbacks to MC and Sayori's childhood. "Friends Forever" is a slowed-down, distorted, lower-pitched reprise that plays during MC's nightmare about drifting from Sayori.
- Dating Sim: Played straight but still doesn't pull punches if the player makes bad decisions.
- Downer Ending: If you mess up,
- Sayori commits suicide.
- Natsuki either gets beaten to death by her father, or the literature club disbands and everyone drifts apart.
- Yuri accidentally kills herself after cutting too deep.
- Eating Lunch Alone: Part of helping Yuri is making sure she has friends with her during lunch.
- Embarrassing Old Photo: Mentioned. Apparently MC has an embarrassing baby photo.
- Evolving Title Screen: The original title screen is replaced with art of the club girls in casual clothing after obtaining all three good endings.
- Fan Disservice: Knowing that Yuri only had sex with MC because she thought she had to makes her H-scene much less comfortable in hindsight.
- Flashback: In Sayori's route, multiple scenes with MC and Sayori as kids are shown via dreams.
- Foreshadowing:
- Blue Skies maintains an approach of hinting at the club girls' issues through their poetry and subtle mannerisms before they are revealed.
- When the friends play Trivial Pursuit in Sayori's route, Sayori is revealed to know where the carotid is in the human body. The carotid is the artery that is destroyed when someone dies by hanging. Sayori knew exactly how to kill herself all along.
- Genki Girl: Emi and Sayori, though it is only an act for Sayori.
- Go-Getter Girl: Monika resents being in this position but feels like she has no choice but to persist.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: The festival. It starts off well... But then some of the students start disrupting the performance, talking over the performers and making a mess of the room.
- Green-Eyed Monster: MC's friendship with Sayori is a point of contention in Natsuki's route.
- The Grunting Orgasm: The MC grunts and shouts Yuri's name during their sex scene.
- Guide Dang It!: Players often struggle to get Natsuki and Yuri's good endings as Natsuki has three other endings and Yuri's route requires a high proportion of good choices.
- Gut Punch: The bad endings give very little forewarning as to what will happen.
- Heavy Sleeper: Sayori and, to a lesser extent, MC. MC's sleeping habits change depending on what choices are made.
- Hello, [Insert Name Here]: Blue Skies maintains the persistent name given when first starting the game, even though there is no longer a reason to.
- High School: MC and the rest of the Literature Club attend one during the events of the mod.
- Hope Spot:
- Yuri calls you back after staying in her house for so long near her bad ending. It turns out she accidentally cut herself too deeply and is about to die.
- Near the end of Natsuki's route, you can give Natsuki a load of money to improve her life but depending on other choices the consequences range from her breaking up with MC later due to him having a heavy work load to her being beaten to death by her father.
- After Sayori breaks up with MC before her bad ending, Mom will go to her house to try and reconcile with her. The two have been pretty close, so it might have worked if Sayori didn't commit suicide.
- Informed Attribute: Monika is portrayed as the school idol but nobody seems interested in joining her Literature Club and no one respects her during her poetry reading session.
- Innocently Insensitive: MC displays this to varying degrees depending on how well the player makes their choices.
- Internal Reveal: The player likely already knows about Sayori's depression, Yuri's self-harm and Natsuki's abuse, as those were already confirmed in the base game. But MC doesn't, and finding out about that respective problem comes off as a huge surprise.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Natsuki and, to a lesser extent, MC.
- Just Here for the Free Snacks: A green-haired boy at the festival cruelly admits that he and his friends only came to the Literature Club for the food.
- Killed Offscreen: Sayori and Natsuki's deaths are not shown.
- Leave Me Alone!: MC has this reaction to the Literature Club after Sayori's suicide.
- Leitmotif: Each of the club girls has their own variation on the Doki Doki main theme.
- Letting the Air out of the Band: Uniquely, during the festival, when disruptions arise, the background music becomes distorted and off-key. It completely dies when everyone has left.
- Living Emotional Crutch: The MC ends up becoming one to all of the girls, especially his love interest for the route.
- This is deconstructed in Yuri and Sayori's bad endings and Natsuki's neutral endings. Yuri will grow to hate herself for becoming codependent on MC, Natsuki will break up with MC because she feels like MC is always trying to help her without her being as capable of returning the favor, and Sayori will resent MC for not being there for her when she needed it.
- Minigame: The first act is much the same as the original game with the player picking words for poems to woo the girl of their choice.
- Mistaken for Cheating: In Natsuki's route, Sayori stops by on Valentine's Day, MC can't bring himself to kick her out, and Natsuki enters the house right as Sayori is hugging MC. Subverted in that Natsuki trusted MC not to romance Sayori behind her back, but envies their general closeness.
- Moment Killer: This happens a lot.
- Yuri and MC try to kiss after the Christmas party, but get interrupted by Sayori returning to claim a lost present.
- Subverted later on New Years' eve. MC and Yuri are interrupted again by fireworks, but it's still a romantic moment as they get to watch the fireworks together and they kiss anyway after the fireworks are over.
- A more platonic variant (at the time) occurs when Sayori takes MC to the park. She is about to confess her depression to MC when Mom calls.
- Right before the Christmas party, Sayori and MC try to kiss... But the doorbell rings and ruins everything.
- Near the end of Sayori's route, when Sayori and the girls are about to have a picnic, Sayori initiates a rather spicy make-out session and wants to make love with MC, but they both forgot about the picnic and the doorbell rings before anything else can happen. Again.
- My God, What Have I Done?: If Natsuki dies, her father has this reaction upon gaining the lucidity to do so.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Monika calls out MC if he gave the money to Natsuki as it ruins their relationship.
- Noodle Incident:
- Apparently Mom did something really embarrassing at MC's elementary school graduation, but no further context is given.
- Monika has experienced scarier things than an ouija board.
- Ominous Visual Glitch: The ones original to DDLC show up in MC's nightmare in Yuri's route while sleeping in class.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: "Relationships aren't a cure-all, and it's about time you got that through your fucking head." is uttered by Yuri near her bad ending. It's lampshaded by MC that she has never swore before and is that fed up with how dense he has been.
- Player Nudge: The game often hints at the types of choices that will be helpful, and supporting characters will often give love advice to the player. Furthermore, in the bad endings, the game implies what the player did wrong.
- At the beginning of Yuri's route, she asks you to let her handle carrying the textbooks herself. Overall on her route, the right choices are the ones where you let Yuri do things herself instead of doing it for her.
- If you get the bad end in Yuri's route, Yuri's phone text rant just before her death implies where the player went wrong.
- At the beginning of Natsuki's route, Natsuki tells you she's not a damsel in distress. Later, when the decision to keep or give the money comes up, Monika warns you not to have a hero complex. And if you choose to give the money to Natsuki, Monika outright tells you that this was the wrong choice.
- Going to therapy or not going to therapy is the single biggest choice in Sayori's route and choosing not to go to therapy results in her bad end. In Sayori's bad end, MC will outright say that he should've gone to therapy with her.
- Recurring Riff:
- The mod's variation on the Doki Doki main theme is played a lot in various different tracks.
- Natsuki has five different tracks associated with her, and four of them share the same melody.
- Red Herring:
- MC's encounter with a spirit on Halloween is nothing but a prank the girls played.
- In Natsuki's route, both Mom and Monika say things that might suggest you should give the money to Natsuki. However, this isn't the right thing to do.
- Second Love: Sayori is implied to be this to MC in Natsuki's Bittersweet Ending.
- Shown Their Work: The developers went out of their way to portray what happens if you handle mental health issues badly.
- In Sayori's route, Sayori mentions having already tried therapy and antidepressants, but it did not work. Realistically, it takes multiple tries before any treatment is effective.
- Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism:
- While the outcomes of the mod depend on how well MC plays his cards, it leans to the idealistic side if you do well.
- Act 3 of Natsuki's route is arguably the most cynical part of the mod, showing the strain that Natsuki's home life puts on the Literature Club and her relationship with MC.
- Surprisingly Creepy Moment: A minor example: MC's Nightmare Sequence in Yuri's route is a far cry from the mundanity of this Game Mod, with the original game's main style of horror returning to hammer home Sayori's fear of becoming distanced from MC again.
- Tempting Fate: The girls (and MC) repeatedly mention the possibility of the festival not going as planned. To say that the festival goes terribly wrong is an understatement.
- Wham Line:
I should have seen this coming, ehe... I guess it really is my own fault. -Sayori, after MC confesses to her.
- Wham Shot:
- In one of Natsuki's bad endings, MC arrives at her house to find the police are there. And then Natsuki is spotted in a bodybag...
- In her other bad ending, MC enters the literature club room and finds it completely empty. All the wall decorations, Natsuki's manga collection... gone.
- In Sayori's bad ending, Mom goes to Sayori's house to talk, and when she returns, she's crying and holding her hand over her mouth, looking absolutely terrified.
- Early in Act 3 of Yuri's route, MC finds Yuri cutting herself.
- What the Hell, Hero?: In Yuri's route, during their argument, Yuri chastises MC for thinking that therapy is going to fix everything and repeatedly pushing it on her. The same thing happens in the bad ending of Sayori's route.
