A blog inside a blog inside of a
Listening to the Yume Nikki OST while I write this, I think it's only fitting.
Today, I played Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk by Nikita Kryukov. It was on a 50% sale on Steam for a wonderful 74 cents as opposed to the $1.94 it goes for. My sister had recommended it offhandedly when we were digital windowshopping so I saw it as a deal. (As my sister said in response to me asking if I should buy the game, "..Only 74 cents. Less than the cost of a milk carton at Donki which is 99 cents." ..I didn't know milk was only 99 cents at Donki!)
It took me 18 minutes to complete the game and get all of it's achievements. I enjoyed it and think it was a nice game, for what it's worth. Enough for me to write a blog post about it! (Even 1bitheart didn't get a post of it's own, but that's because I was too much in my feels when I finished it.)
I won't give a whole plot synopses, given the game can be finished in a short time. I highly recommend watching a playthrough of it if anything, or buying the game yourself if you have a dollar to spare. The next part of this blog will definitely have spoilers and speculation to the story.
Visually, Milk inside of a bag is very curious. It uses a limited palette of wine red, purples, and magenta that isn't necessarily eyestraining, but uncomfortable to look at. Certain CGs threw me off guard because the game drones on before smacking you in the face, and I don't mean that in a bad way. It's very much in nature for this game to leave you in the thoughts of the protagonist and sit uncomfortably with her.
As for the story, I love the mundanity of it. You are with a girl. You are accompanying her to get a bag of milk. With this goal in mind, you see how many steps it takes her to even bring herself to do anything. You can't control her, merely advise, but even so it feels like you're beating her down most times.
That is because you are in her shoes, in a sense. She admits the reader is a figment, that the medium itself - a visual novel - is her form of coping and collecting her thoughts. It's an interesting way to engage with the genre, and a way to remove the player's agency when games are so reliant on the player. I like it.
Many people dog on the genericism that is "Indie game with an allegory for depression", but I do believe depictions of menial, mental struggles has merit, even in a short game. I think the unnamed protagonist was relatable, I felt seen in a weird way?
To preface: No I am not diagnosed, nor do I think I have anything, really. I don't want to dwell on it too much.
But the protagonist's idiosyncracies and behaviors, having to go on this adventure with her, feels a lot like the things I've done before. Sometimes the world feels mandated by unspoken steps that everyone knows except you, every action must be played right, and if anything were to be a misstep then, well, you're just a failure, aren't you?
Oh yeah, I also like to pretend my life is a video game (🤓) just to get through the day sometimes. Being a human feels more manageable if you sort everything in a way that makes sense only to yourself. And I'm glad I could see the protagonist's thought process, even if some aspects of it could be seen as nonsensical. What I find so interesting, even relieving about Milk inside a bag is that the player can berate the protagonist. Sometimes it forces you to.
At first I had seen it as an unusual choice because I felt sympathetic to the protagonist's plight — I know the struggles of rehearsing the most basic functions. When revealed the player is just the thought of the protagonist soothing herself, it made a lot more sense. Thoughts of strangers hating you, your own patheticness, irrationality even though you know it's ridiculous.. these thoughts cannot be helped. You, the player, cannot help her with everything.
I feel like there's a lot more I'd like to comment on too, such as the protagonist's fascination with recursion and repetition (tying into mundane struggle), and the whole section of her talking to the reader directly, but I think I'll need to mull on those more.
As one final comment, it's funny reading the discussion boards on Steam. This game is, I wouldn't say catered, but encapsulates a very specific mindset. As one person said in the board, "I'm not mentally ill enough to understand this game. Sorry guys."