The Familiar Yet Unfamiliar Horror of The "Milk" Games

 

CONTENT WARNING: Mental Illness, Trauma

This is Milk Inside a Bag of Milk Inside a Bag Milk... and its sequel, Milk Outside a Bag of Milk Outside a Bag of Milk... and the sound of an electrical short-circuit you're hearing right now is my anxiety sensors flaring off uncontrollably.

The Milk visual novels, as I would like to call them, are an unnerving, unsafe, decisively un-fun journey into the mind of a broken individual as she navigates an altered reality filtered through the disfiguring lenses of her mental illness, low-functioning neurodivergence and trauma.

This isn't as much an allegoric representation of her deeply rooted issues as it is an abrasively surreal piece that aims to subject the player to the world as she perceives it, as her mind mutilates it, making every waking moment of her life overflow with existential dread. Milk accomplishes such devious goal thanks to its unique framework: the player is a voice in her head trying to help her buy a bottle of milk; a task made oppressively difficult by her fundamental inability to function within the "standards of society", at the very bare minimum.

The first game assaults you with a barrage of fastidious, disorientating, senses overloading colours, sounds and shapes. The girl copes with it by "pretending to be the protagonist of a visual novel." She is the "milk" inside the bag of her multi-layered, anxious brain.

The second game forces the "milk" out of the bag, once she's home from the grocery shop, and becomes a disturbing therapy session: a nightmarish and morose stream of consciousness fueled by insomnia and very dark thoughts inside darker thoughts inside darker thoughts...

It's a visual and verbose trip with recognizable artistic influences (somewhere between Satoshi Kon and Hideaki Anno) that does not relent and does not apologize for it, with its sharp black/red monochromes and suffocating aesthetics, with its dreams within dreams.

Milk Girl is trapped in her own head just as much as she is trapped in a reality that offers no support to her. She has to develop habits and coping mechanisms just to survive the day-by-day Kafkian horror of living. Do not take my word as an authority on the matter but I do believe these games come as close as it gets to properly capture what it's like to grow up as a neurodivergent child, along with the potential scars picked up along the way. As an autistic person, I find myself sucked into this vortex of unease, fear and dread that feels all too familiar yet unfamiliar. Existing in this perpetually fluctuating state of mind between feeling like a burden and hating the world for not conforming to you. However, make no mistake, Milk Girl is not your "puzzle to solve" as the purposeful ambiguity of the narrative framing demonstrates. Understanding "what's wrong with her" is not the goal here. The goal is Empathy.

The Milk visual novels are strongly, viscerally about Empathy. They are about connecting with people you don't understand, people who have suffered for faults not of their own and have been alienated as a result. People that deserve love and to be loved just as much as you do. People that need help but don't deserve pity or disdain for it. People like you but not like you, different yet the same. They (us) are human beings regardless if they are "relatable" or not.

In conclusion: these games are a deeply unpleasant experience and more so powerful as a result, the art direction is impeccably strangling and Milk Girl is an iconic character. Play them at your own discretion - especially if you are neurotypical. This was emotionally draining to write.

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A/N:

I have had these thoughts on the series typed down since the beginning of 2023. In truth, most if not everything I put in the form of an article starts life as sporadic observations over on my Twitter account. Hence why I keep linking my threads on Tumblr, as well. Anyway, you can follow me there and on YouTube, of course.

The Milk games were developed by Nikita Kryukov. They are available on Steam and Nintendo Switch.

Have a happy new year, or else!