The freshness has worn off of these tricks. Secretly placing extra files on your desktop. Crashing the game and forcing you to restart the client. Some niche titles have dabbled in this approach. The effectiveness of Doki Doki's terror relies heavily on its manipulation of the game itself. Waiting for the other shoe to drop is almost as harrowing as the impact when it finally does. Enough to remind you that this is a horror game, and it could pull the curtain back on the dating game facade whenever it wants to. With a surgeon's precision, the lightest of hints are dropped. You start to learn that the girls you're struggling to woo are akin to actual people. Boobs are grazed by accident, and failures in translation are pointed out. The game even pokes fun at classic Japanese romance game tropes. Inevitably, you start to get comfortable.

Instead, it sets you up for the perfect fall – one that relies on you knowing you're playing a horror game. The game isn't set up to try and trick you, though. No hints required, apart from that tagline. Doki Doki Literature Club commits to the ultimate trust-fall: that the wildfire-like nature of social media and Let's Plays can carry a fantastic horror game like this into fame and notoriety. They don't trust their audience enough to dig deep enough or stick around for long enough to discover the game's true nature for themselves. Even titles that try to pretend they aren't horror generally add a little nudge and an eyebrow waggle in the screen shots or trailer. It's a not-so-secret secret begging to go viral, the warning practically demanding to be shared. This, the sense of something sinister hiding in plain sight, is the first aspect of its success that feels so very modern.

'This game is not suitable for children or those who are easily disturbed.' Beyond that there are no hints in the game trailer, no secrets in the description. Only one thing sets it apart - the tagline. Doki Doki Literature Club slips into that style seamlessly. Japanese-style dating games often stick to an aesthetic and tone that's all but synonymous with the genre: bouncy anime blended with air-headed girls, all clamouring to get the attention of the male protagonist. And there's no easier style of game to out-smart than a dating sim. Most of all, we like knowing we've out-smarted the game. Many of us know how to access game data if needed. We watch how our choices change the story flow. We players like to be in charge of our games.

Doki doki literature club secrets