I am having the same problem, though I'm not sure about the task manager one. Every time I open the game it'll load but then stop, and nothing opens and I tried everything, uninstalling it and reinstalling it uninstalled steam and reinstalled it, to just copying and pasting the _renpysteam into "Renpy" folders that was already on it but still nothing

Edit: Ok I finally figured it out, if you have a Windows and have played other steam games go to Windows C/Program files(x86)/Steam there search the file _renpysteam, there should be two of them, a .so file and a .pyd file, copy and paste them (ITS MANDITORY FOR BOTH THE .so AND THE .pyd FILES)  into the common folder, (Windows C/Program files(x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/doki doki literature club/renpy/common) if it doesn't work go to task manager (ctrl+shift+esc) click more options and it will bring you to a list of software that opens up after a restart, you wanna click end task on a few of them, after like 3 or 5 it should work, if it doesn't or you have a mac then idk

Okay, hello im new and i downloaded DDLC from here. I was really looking forward to play it, but... the game isnt starting. I have windows 8, 2g ram.

Also,  i dont have a steam account but in the Log file it says  _renpysteam is missing. Help!

I just downloaded the game from the DDLC.moe  The files appeared, but no shortcut or anything showed up. Do I need to download steam or some other game hosting service to play it? I would prefer to avoid that for ease of use in the future so I can just download it anywhere and play ;p

Anywho, thanks a bunch. Gave the ten bucks because I want to support creative stuff like this.  Sorry for being so illiterate in the PC gamingsphere :)

also how do you unzip  the game?