Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk is a psychological horror indie game by Nikita Kryukov. It's a visual novel in which you help a girl with mental health issues go to the store to buy a bag of milk. You, the helper of this visual novel, must make sure that you do indeed help her properly, and to not disappoint her. The game is quite short, clocking in at around 25 minutes of gametime, yet still manages to leave an undeniable impression, thanks to its eerie soundtrack, captivating dialogue, and its otherwordly visual design.
Like I previously mentioned, the game is super short, so there's not a whole lot to talk about. What I will say is that this game really does manage to nail what it intends to do in such a short time. I don't think I've ever been successfully creeped out in such a quick fashion. A lot of this is due to the art and soundtrack, both taking inspiration from the retro NES/Atari style. Character designs are essentially alien, and the music is that sort of horrifying, out of tune 8-bit chiptune that you'd hear in like a creepypasta of the sort. However this is not to say that the music is subpar, much the reverse actually. It's absoulutely perfect for what this game is trying to do, creep you out.
So the music and art design are justified, but this is a visual novel, and a visual novel is all about dialogue, so that begs the question: How is the dialogue? If I had to sum it up in a word, I would say the dialogue is interesting. Again, this game is super short, you can beat it in around 25 minutes and experience everything in 40, but the dialogue, and the entire game for that matter, seem to understand its own length, and manages to stay succinct and continuously captivating. I would even go as far as to say that the length seems to serve the dialogue and the pacing, because having such a time constraint really seems to eliminate any sort of filler dialogue. Everything you read and experience in this game all serves to progress or richen the narrative, not just pad it out. The actual story seems to project the idea that our main character has some sort of schizophrenia. Please also take into account that I am not an expert by any means on mental health disorders, and in the game they never explicitly say schizophrenia, so take that claim with a grain of salt. Regardless, this means that everything we see in the game is sort of hallucinated. We do actually talk to people, we do actually go to a store and buy milk, it's just that what they're saying and what they look like are clearly products of her disorder. In short, the dialogue is great, it has no room for filler, and manages to plant ideas in such a short amount of time.
I really do believe that's all I can say about this game without essentially explaining what happens plot point by plot point. I would highly reccommend playing this game. It certainly won't change your life, and it won't hold your attention for more than an hour, but its short length manages to serve its strengths, and creates a seriously potent experience, for a very reasonable price.
3.5/5
Milk outside a bag of milk outside a bag of milk is (unsurprisingly) the direct sequel to Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk. This game essentially builds upon everything from the first game, with a new art direction that still stays true to its roots, eerie music, wonderfully animated cutscenes, and 5 different endings. This game is much more similar to your average visual novel, the girl we help is usually always on screen with different poses and emotions. The game also has a lot more meat on its bones compared to the first game. It took me about 40 minutes to complete it, and about 2 and a half hours to 100% it using save states.
In this game, you help out our main character in her house. As she's going to bed, she tries to get her thoughts in order by imagining them as fireflies, and ends up losing track of them when they scatter and hide around the room. She turns to you, her helper, to find them for her in a point-and-click adventure style game. Something I didn't mention in the above review is that in the first game she imagines you to be a helper in a visual novel, which is why you have to help her well. In this game, she mentions that pretending to be in a visual novel helped, so now she should pretend to be in a point-and-click adventure game. This isn't exactly important by any means, but is a cute nod.
The game is structured in 3 parts. You have the intro, which is essentially a long interactive cutscene. The middle which is the main part of the game, where you interact with our main character and eventually do the pointing and clicking. Then finally, you have the outro when she goes to bed. When she goes to bed she dreams a certain sequence of events. This is your ending, and like I mentioned before there are 5 of them. Which ending you get is dependent on whether or not you find all the fireflies and whether or not you triggered certain events in the main game. This is in my opinion, super cool! I think having the 5 different endings, as well as finding each of them be an understandable trial and error process, makes it much more fun to find all the endings. I personally had fun going back to a certain save state and trying to find different amounts of fireflies or not trigger certain events and seeing how that affected my ending. This is the main thing you'll be replaying for, and once you get all the endings, I doubt you'll really go back to it for a while, much like the first game.
I don't really feel the need to touch on the art and the music, because they're great. They're a more elevated version of the first game's and the animated cutscenes are a wonderful touch. What I will touch on however, is the dialogue. This game expands on and deepens the themes and, well, sole character of the first game. I will say this game gives you less opportunites to be mean to the main character, and options generally force you to be more friendly with her, although there are moments where you can press her and get some really horrifying sequences of dialogue. I really don't mind the less rude options, because this game isn't really about being a good helper like the first game is. It takes place after the first game's ending where you were a good helper after all, so it only makes sense that you are friendly with her in this game. There are some cute dialogue sequences, and it feels really nice to see this girl who's clearly struggling just smile or giggle. The game does a great job of making you care about her and really feel for her, which makes the game feel more intense when you get to scarier scenes.
This game is everything the first game was, just more and better. As a standalone game, it's a thought-provoking, at times truly horrifying, and just flat out interesting experience with a fair bit of replayability. As a sequel, it builds upon everything the first game establishes, gives you more than twice as much to chew on, and provides deeper insights into our character and the overall themes of the game. The animated cutscenes, as well as the animation in the visual novel part adds that dynamic element that might have felt absent from the first game. And for a game that is twice as long, it manages to also stay as potent and as inspired as the original. Again, it's not a game that will change your life, but it manages to do what it wants to do extremely well, and is well worth your time and money.
4.2/5