So then, I'm going to make this a review/analysis for the first three (I'm going to make one on the fourth someday. It's just fairly recent and I don't have all of my thoughts gathered yet.) on YouTube and not this game, you might be asking why? Mostly because I feel like this is pretty much the closest thing I have resembling a "platform" and an audience. I really appreciate you for reading this especially since this little YouTube series and Metal Gear Solid 2 is what has inspired me to look deep into works of art I enjoy. This series has so many themes I want to go over and hopefully can do justice for. There will obviously be spoilers for the 3 videos in this series . Also some incredibly disturbing topics will be covered such as CSA, Child Abuse, Suicide and Animal Abuse.

The series is basically just putting a horrid twist on those "cute girly" flash games made in the 2000s with some of them getting updated to have frightening Easter eggs that could easily traumatise anyone playing them and accidentally stumbling upon these secrets. The creator of these flash games, Rocio. Has described these cursed flash games as the "Real Girl Games". That line is haunting to me since the videos do depict what I'm sure many women go through such as Stalking, depicted in the first video. being unable to meet expectations in the dinner video, Childhood abuse/CSA in the Petshop video. Please do take note that I'm biologically male and don't like a girl at all. With me only really being genderfluid very recently and even then my life is still through that of a boy... even if I want to be more feminine. If I do end up saying some stupid shit. Please let me know.

The first video, the one this game is actually based on. Is incredibly lacking to the later entries in my opinion. The horror is decent but not enough to really dissect here. You could say that Lacey being forced by the player to go outside when the Stalker is right there and here even telling you to not make her go outside represents her parents, aka the player I think. Still doing something we want against her will. But this is just a theory and again...not that interesting.

The dinner is when we really start to pick up. Lacey opens up a dinner (wow, no fucking way Andria really?) and is enthusiastic about it until she realises that...the costumers can be quite unforgiving when they're hungry. It's safe to assume she's had so much trouble running it, with customers yelling at her for not working fast enough... unfortunately, I've seen a lot of employees get treated like shit. It's incredibly sad to see. Especially since Lacey tries her best to do anything to make them happy and keep her business a float but...to no avail. Then the video glitches into the "horror" state. Showing what I assume to be her uncle and her things from her childhood. It's pretty clear to me that she has PTSD and has flashbacks to her awful childhood which we'll get to...before we know it, The business is shut down. With Lacey smoking before taking her own life. As someone that struggles with wanting to meet expectations and feeling like I'll be a failure with no future...this hit me incredibly hard. Especially since, while definitely not as bad as Lacey's situation by any means. Does remind me of getting yelled at for not doing things properly or not being smart nor competent as my peers. Sometimes even wanting to uhh...go to sleep forever since I thought my parents hated me for being so useless. The atmosphere turning into the cold, dark night when we see her business shutting down, it's incredibly chilling yet fitting in my opinion. I'm sure a lot of people can relate to falling short on expectations. To say this is a huge improvement over the first one would be an understatement.

The Petshop gets even better. Lacey opens up a Petshop (by the way the timeline of these games don't really matter all that much, from what I've seen at least.) this is going to be quite impactful to me, I have a dog named Sora and I love him very much. I'd have a mental breakdown if I saw him even get hurt haha. Plus I've always loved animals for all of my life. But anyways, that aside. Lacey's pet orders seem simple and reasonable enough until the customers begin to make more and more weird requests...which the scariest ones being the rabbit having it's limbs cut off and the turtle having teeth to smile at it's owner...then as we do the typical horror transition. Lacey is in another reality it seems with a house. The sky and ground seems like something that would come out of hell though...huh, wonder why? Anyways. As Lacey gets permission from a cat to go the keys she walks into her dinning room with pigs eating flowers...this is supposed to represent her family. Her uncle was the main abuser but it's safe to say the rest of her family probably treated her like shit as well. With them neglecting her and leaving her with the uncle...them eating flowers in my opinion is symbolism for taking away her childhood innocence for their own greed and benefit. With the uncle being heavily implied to assault her...it's sad how much shit this poor girl has gone through. But before we're able to process it...no one is at the dinning table anymore besides Lacey. She gets out of there and enters the living room with a...weird cage. She then suddenly gets in it. Pondering about her life and how "this pain hurts so comfortably.". I interpret this as Lacey just not knowing what to do about her situation and just being forced to suck it up, getting used to it so much to the point where it's the norm for her. The cage represents her feeling trapped since she really can't do anything in her awful circumstances. As she's going through her "edgy moment" in her own words, she finds a key. Picks it up and opens the lock leading to the second floor of the house. She enters the bathroom, saying "I'm not afraid of myself, let's look just for a little bit." As we look into the mirror...Lacey begins to transform into the one behind these games, Rocio herself. Talking to us if we're enjoying her work, this is where we get the famous line. "These are the real girl games". With the most horrifying visuals and audio. Before Lacey books it out of there...if this scene isn't perfect I don't know what is. Lacey turning into Rocio symbolises to me as these games being her own way of venting and telling her experiences through Lacey. Lacey is supposed to be the representation of how damaged you can be mentally because of gender roles/societal expectation, women don't have it easy, men don't either. But this series is made by a woman and I'm sure is representation of what they might have experienced...which is awful to think about. Carrying on from the depressing topic into another. Lacey storms into her bedroom after witnessing the horrifying sequence, then Lacey begins to ponder again. Thinking about fun things to do such as eating ice cream, buying CDs of her favourite songs and getting a cat before she's reminded of her pet dog. I haven't brought him up yet but now is the perfect time. Lacey in a split frame talks about her uncle being a pig and taking her "angel" away...which is her dog, Puddles. It's fairly obvious her uncle killed her only real friend she had. Leaving her in an even worse mental state... something I'd like to mention is that my dog looks really similar to puddles which just only made me more depressed watching this. As Lacey slowly begins to lose her mind she goes to a room that looks like nothing from our reality and more like again, hell with candles and a matchbox on the ground before taking her life. As she sings a depressing tune about her 4-legged best friend...before waking up from her nightmare? Huh-wait...oh...if you look under her bed as she's woken up you can see a corpse censored underneath it...it's safe to assume she's killed her uncle. I think the hell symbolism makes a lot more sense since her home life was her own hell plus her worst fear is going to hell after killing her uncle, that's why it was her nightmare if I had to guess. Again, this is an amazing video and an improvement over the last. Seems like tundra will only keep getting better and better. I definitely didn't have an abusive homelife like Lacey so I can't comment on it much but I'm confident in saying that's it's just as horrifying as than this series depicts. For children, seeing those who gave you your life being abusive towards you with no form of escape...that is pretty much their own hell. It feeling eternal and never ending. Plus the scenes with her dog almost made me shed a tear due to how much I fear about my dog being hurt and how painful it is to lose your best friend...fantastic work, Tundra. I'm really sorry if this comes off as too sappy it's just...it's been a while since I've seen a video series that captures my attention this much. With the topics it handles and how respectful it feels by showing how horrifying and damaging these can be. If you haven't watched the series yet, please do. It's incredible and there's definitely some stuff I left out, with having amazing scares as well.

- Andria <3