Dan Salvato

Dan Salvato (born December 23rd 1991) is the creator of Doki Doki Literature Club! and Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!, and the founder of the development studio Team Salvato. Before creating DDLC, Dan was known for his modding work as part of Project M, a well-known Super Smash Bros. Brawl mod.

Project M.[]

Born on December 23rd, 1991, Dan Salvato became a professional smasher from New Jersey. He was known as one of the best Super Smash Bros. Melee Link players in the United States, and was also considered one of the best Project M Link players in the world. He is known for his high technical precision and development of a new Link metagame. He was one of the founding members of Rutgers Maylay as an undergraduate. Dan was also a developer on the Project M Development Team and was also the lead developer of 20XX Tournament Edition.

Dan retired from playing Smash in 2015, though he has infrequently attended tournaments for Melee since, still using Link; he continued to work on 20XX Tournament Edition, adding in additional features such as Universal Controller Fix. Dan also achieved recognition in 2015 for his extremely difficult Super Mario Maker levels, such as "P is For Pain", and after the game's sequel was released in 2019, Dan created difficult levels for it, such as "Lethal Injection".

Development and Release of DDLC[]

In a Twitter post, Dan stated that he intended the release of Doki Doki Literature Club! to be on April 1st, 2017, but he knew it was not ready and wanted to publish a complete product.^[2] He also stated that the game was born from his love-hate relationship with anime. In particular, he cited the "cute girls doing cute things" trope to be a double-edged sword.^[3] He released Doki Doki Literature Club! on September 22nd, 2017, and the game quickly gained mass popularity upon release. The following year, Dan did an anniversary stream of himself playing Doki Doki Literature Club! in September, in celebration of the game's first anniversary.

In June 2021, Dan announced Doki Doki Literature Club Plus!, an expanded version of the original game with bonus content; the Side Stories. He and the development team Serenity Forge released the game digitally on June 30th, 2021, and released physical editions on the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5 in October 2021. He had previously expressed a desire to expand the game, in particular Natsuki's character, in 2020, but production was pushed back one year due to COVID-19. In October 2021, as Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! hit retail stores, Dan did a video unboxing the game and all the items included with it.

Trivia[]

Prior to the release of version 1.1.1, Monika mentions Super Smash Bros during Act 3, in one of her conversations. She doesn't know why she said that or even what it is and advises the player to ask her creators. When someone asked Dan about it on Twitter, he explained that it's a joke referencing his history in the Smash Bros. community as a Super Smash Bros. Melee hacker and mod developer.^[4] This line is not shown in game as of version 1.1.1.
Dan Salvato has reacted positively to the fan-made mods of Doki Doki Literature Club!, stating "thanks to the Ren'Py engine, DDLC is excellent and highly accessible for modding, something we hope continues for years to come."