Reviewers emphasized that the game achieves its surprising impact on the player due to its outward resemblance to typical eroge games: it has a pronounced anime style in its character design,[1][2] and the game's goal is to develop a relationship with one of the characters.[3][4] In addition, the characters consist of anime stereotypes whose behavior is sparsely displayed through their sprites,[5] and the game's musical accompaniment is light, bouncy, gentle and playful.[1][6] According to critics, these aspects combined to create the impression of a standard visual novel that would prompt the player to become attached to the characters.[2][3][6][10] VisualNovelist of Jeuxvideo.com positively compared the game's visual quality to Everlasting Summer, another independent visual novel with the appearance of a professional production.[38] Reviewers pointed out that the game's horror was built on the destruction of a sense of control over what happens in the game and the feeling of helplessness that stems from the distortions in the game's world.[6][9] Victoria Rose of Polygon stated that this approach was strikingly different from traditional horror games and films, where the viewer remains alienated from what is happening on the screen.[9] Amy Josuweit of Rock, Paper, Shotgun noted that while earlier visual novels have broken the fourth wall by crashing the client or adding extra files, Doki Doki Literature Club! changed the angle by deliberately destroying files rather than adding them.[6]