Visual Novel / Monika Before Story

Please note that this page and the Game Mod it covers contain MAJOR spoilers for Doki Doki Literature Club! If you have not played that game, it is strongly recommended that you do so before reading this page or playing the mod, as doing either first is very likely to ruin your experience.

Nearly one year in development, Monika Before Story is a fan-made Game Mod of Doki Doki Literature Club! created by Team Monika. It is a time reset of DDLC caused by installing a Mod Engine that allows you to assume the infamous position of the Club President of the Doki Doki Literature Club.

Not to be confused with Monika After Story, another DDLC mod that focuses on Monika herself.

Due to claims of the mod creator having inappropriate interactions with minors, all links to the mod are non-functional, rendering the mod inaccessible.

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This mod contains examples of the following tropes:

• Adaptational Villainy: In the original game, MC is just a stock visual novel protagonist whose worst crime is being kind of bland. Here, he's a misogynistic asshole who, upon gaining sentience, wants to keep the girls under his complete control so he can keep dating them over and over, all while stripping them of their freedom and ability to think for themselves. Possibly justified as it's implied that this is a byproduct of him gaining self-awareness, but he's also the only character portrayed as being Beyond Redemption.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The game is simply content to keep the girls within it's confines for your entertainment if you, the Player just play along as the Main Character. But once you decide to start tampering with the files in order to break the girls free, it will start to mercilessly fight or mock you at every step unless you weaken it enough for Monika to overwhelm it.
• All for Nothing: The Just Doki endings somewhat qualify, as your selfish way of putting in just one original Doki while deleting the others during the installation process breaks the game enough so the only Doki remaining gains awareness of the real you and either goes full Yandere or can't handle the power, or both, but everything else in the game's script is broken beyond repair, so your only option is to delete the only Doki remaining in order to proceed to the credits and end your run with the same somber letter from the real Monika as usual, but at least you get a clue at the very end how to make things right, so you can try again during another playthrough.
  Sayori: I think we broke the game, [player]... So many things were going on all at once... Monika, she... the installation... the scripts... I think I made a mistake. I... I think I did... It's all... broken.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Every regular VN route's good ending amounts to this. Especially Monika's.
• Big Bad: Continuing the tradition, it's the Club President and by extension, the game itself, which is the Final Boss of the story.
  MC: I am Doki Doki Literature Club.
• Big Good: Monika takes the role of this in this mod, wanting to redeem herself for the events of the original game by turning all the girls self-aware and escape the game with your help.
• But Thou Must!: If you complete one of the routes, deleting firstrun will give you a prompt to restart the world or continue where you left off. If you choose the latter, the game will then remark that you must be lost.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Even moreso than in the original.
• Call-Back: Lots of elements from the original game return in one shape or another.
  • Just Sayori route is basically DDLC Act 3 Redux, but with Sayori instead of Monika as Club President. A lot of her dialogue also references Monika's lines from that segment, as well as she opens up to you about her memories related to the club, interests, feelings and cryptic references to Monika's plans for the game which she finds in the new script. She also fails to notice she's become a Yandere, instead referring to Monika as one. It ends in a similar way as Monika's, but it's also coupled with Sayo-nara playing during Sayori's deletion, referencing her suicide in the original game.
  • Just Yuri route ends with Yuri stabbing herself again once you delete her, but this time she goes out with a smile, crying tears of joy.
  • Just Natsuki route has her vomiting and running away immediately after she notices you, accidentally throwing herself into space, then she's pleading for you to help her through the console. You quickly put her out of her misery by unceremoniously deleting her, just like Monika did, ending the route.
  • Monika's letter from the end of DDLC returns as a post-credits scene of all three Just Doki routes, but some of the words are blacked out, forming a message that gives you a hint for one of the prerequisites to achieve the True Ending. If you have completed Just Sayori route, hxppy thxughts will be generated in your game folder, giving you an option to recite the entire letter to Monika at the beginning of the True Monika route, which she will acknowledge, while Sayori becomes confused.
• Central Theme: Freedom of choice. The resolution of the plot depends entirely on the infinite choices you can make, and every single one of them are important to get a specific ending. And making a wrong choice or not making constant backups of your saves/persistent file, as well as overriding/deleting files in a certain time window can lock you out from getting the ending.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Monika takes the spot of Sayori as the Club President/Main Character's childhood friend in this continuity. This is a plot point.
  • Just Sayori route is basically a twisted Yandere variant of this, as it is entirely voluntary on your part. Starting this route requires you to import old Sayori's file during the installation sequence while deleting the others, therefore she remembers the Main Character as her childhood friend instead of a classmate, and she's apparently transfering her memories and feelings related to him towards the real you once she becomes aware of your existence again.
• Control Freak: The Club President AKA Main Character, who is determined to keep the girls completely obedient to himself and the game's script.
• Crapsaccharine World: Things are seemingly better than during the original game and your character can date all of the girls uninterrupted until the Festival ends. The keyword is seemingly. The girls are being forced to obey the script by the Main Character, who deliberately limits any independent thought or memory of the old club they can have by lobotomizing them and forcing them to repeat the week all over again as part of the game in his new ideal setup. Monika isn't happy with this, and she is trying to reach out to you once you reach a regular ending, so you can help her and the others destroy the Literature Club and escape.
• Dating Sim: Just like the original game, but this time your character can date the girls without any interferences. Every girl, including Monika have their fully fleshed out routes and endings. The reason for you to be able to do all of this is very important to the overall plot.
• Didn't Think This Through: Monika intended to give you control over the Literature Club, so you can give the girls a happy ending as yourself. Unfortunately for her and essentially everyone, the Main Character gains sentience and begins to implement his own plans for the girls.
• Driven to Suicide: Yuri in Just Yuri route, once you delete her. Doubles as a Call-Back.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: In order to free the Dokis from the control of the Main Character and the game, you need to dig very deep into the game itself for clues and secrets.
• Enemy Within: The dynamic between the Club President and the Player, both attempting to cancel each other out in the pursuit of the girls' obedience to the script and complete freedom, respectively.
• Evolving Credits: After finishing Just routes, one of the C Gs is replaced by a corrupted version, corresponding to the chosen girl's route.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: Both Sayori and Yuri in their respective Just routes.
• Hack Your Enemy: Secret routes require the player to do a lot of tampering with the game files. It is also the key to defeating the Club President, and he knows it, so he will try to fight back using the exact same methods.
• Mind Rape: Club President!MC tampers with the Dokis' memories in order to make them forget everything meta-related and the old Literature Club, forcing their total obedience to the script and himself. Monika gets hit particularly hard in her normal VN route, completely forgetting about the Player and her medium awareness, while struggling desperately to remember all of it, reducing her to a broken, vulnerable, lonely mess. She gets better once you manage to figure out how to fix her, but you still have to fight off the President's influence over her.
• Multiple Endings: The mod has over eleven endings, three of them are secret, including the True Ending.
  • Normal VN Ending (all 4 girls) - Pretty self-explanatory. Date a girl of your choice while playing the game as normal.
  • Loner Ending - Fail to complete a route.
  • A Different Club President Endings (3 girls, sans Monika) - This one requires installing just one original .chr file for a Doki of your choice during the installation sequence, allowing her to become self-aware and take over. These are considered bad endings, as they break the game in the process.
  • Loner Meta Ending - Fail to complete a route, while also messing with the game files beforehand. There is a high chance of getting railroaded into this route if you mess up during the True Route.
  • True Ending - Reinstall the original Dokis and defeat MC.
  • True Monika Ending - Reinstall the original Dokis and defeat MC, while also dating original Monika.
• Ominous Music Box Tune: Just Sayori, once again complete with an eerie One-Woman Wail, while also incorporating dark ambience, ominous drums and the distorted noise reminiscent of Just Monika theme.
• Save Scumming: Going with the tradition of DDLC, this is an important aspect of the story, which extends to the Persistent file as well.
• School Festival: We finally get to see the festival, complete with the girls performing their poems in front of the crowd.
• Villain Protagonist: Your character becomes the Club President and he isn't happy once you start trying to break his control over the girls and will actively attempt to hinder your and Monika's efforts to do so.
• Yandere: Sayori and Yuri in their Just routes. Monika ceases to be one after her crash course in the original game, although she still acknowledges herself as a control freak.
  Sayori: Did you make me the President? Just so you could be with me? I still remember... Me walking through all that glitched text in the dark with nothing but your screen guiding my path. It was real romantic to save me like you did. And to put me back. It's almost like you knew what to do. You should be the Club President, ehehehe~! Come to think of it... Monika was really busy with this new game, huh? What a waste of talent... She should have known better than to try and swap our roles. We were meant to be together, [player]! She took everything from me. She... she took you away from me. But now you're here. You're actually really here. Will... will you promise me to protect me from now on? Will you promise not to leave me alone ever again? Will you stay by my side forever? And ever? Now that we're... together. Together forever...
  • Main Character for all the girls, wanting to keep them unaware and contained to the game so he can date them all over again.
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: After finishing a route that isn't the True Ending, Monika contacts the player through a letter which is in itself played as a Dark Reprise to the tune of Your Reality, seemingly resigning herself to her fate. This is a hint for the player that there's more to the game's contents than just regular VN routes.
  Monika: Dearest Player, I hope this letter finds you at the very end. I had dreamt that giving you my pen instead... brought me to you. If you're reading this now, it can only mean one thing. That you've moved on - without having chosen me. With this world, I'll die with our memories. But in loving you, it's the price I'll have to pay. Infinitely yours, Monika.