Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk, made entirely by Nikita Kryukov, is a short visual novel with horror elements. It focuses on a mentally ill girl struggling with agoraphobia as she walks to the store to buy milk. Milk inside of a bag’s narrative breaks down the fourth wall completely, acknowledging its player as a figment of the girl’s imagination - someone she’s created to help her complete this seemingly small task. Someone to perform for in her mind, to try to keep her thoughts in check and focused.
It’s a small, neat story about the difficulties of interacting with the outside world when you’re not doing well. The girl’s perception of reality is heavily skewed; she views the people around her as monsters that are, in her words, ‘probably more scared of her than she is of them’. She speaks often of the endless stream of medications she’s taken in both the past and present to try to help her conditions. The very first time we meet her, she’s rehearsing her script for buying milk for nearly the twentieth time. The girl even exhibits symptoms of OCD; for example, counting her footsteps, getting upset when she walks ‘incorrectly’, and taking a dislike to the letter ‘O’ because of the intrusive thoughts it gives her.
Throughout the game, the player will be given the chance to comment on the girl’s train of thought or outward actions. Sometimes, there’s only one option, simply serving as a way to keep the dialogue flowing. Other times, you’re given two (or more) options - usually to either direct the girl’s thought process and actions, or to senselessly degrade her. However, if you choose to be mean too often, you’ll earn a ‘game over’ accompanied by a small jumpscare where the girl asserts that you’re not helpful to her. You may then restart (and choose to be nicer this time!)
Milk provides a very interesting take on having both a mental illness-focused narrative and an unreliable narrator. It may not be saying anything particularly new or groundbreaking, but the lens through which its story and main character are expressed is enough to make it feel fresh. A huge part of this is because you never once take direct control of the girl herself, instead acting as nothing but a voice in her head the entire game - the player to her visual novel protagonist, as she puts it (a role you’re also filling literally.) The way the girl perceives the world is captivatingly surreal and uncanny, including her largely self-contained interactions.
But Milk’s charm is not only due to good writing, but also beautiful art (and sound direction.) The top half of the screen serves as your view into the girl’s world. Its pixel art is intentionally minimalist, to the point of being near-obfuscated; its color palette is made up entirely of dark red, bright purple, and black. The environments depicted are mundane in their normalcy - a street, a light stop, a store - yet they feel so strange under this presentation. They’re the half-skewed world of someone struggling to separate their mind from reality.
Peppered throughout this seemingly rather normal town are fascinating horror elements which lean much further into the unknown. While at the store, the girl interacts with a few monsters who challenge the bravery she’s drummed up to go out and interact with the world. Yet, easily the most disturbing parts are the imagery revolving around her own home and family during the latter half of the game. But I won’t reveal more than that.
Just like how these visuals merge reality and delusion, the sound design does the same. A detail I found interesting is how Nikita chooses to apply the classic audio ‘babble’ to only select portions of the girl’s inner monologue. Lines meant primarily to describe the girl’s surroundings and actions may also be interspersed with her thoughts on what she’s observing; yet she clearly stays silent while doing so. Conversely, during the meager amount of dialogue she has with characters outside of the player, she’s accompanied by a chiptune ‘babble’. What’s notable is that this ‘babble’, along with quotation marks, are also applied to certain thoughts of hers - but only the ones directly addressed to the player. AKA, the voice in her head. This implies she may be speaking to herself out loud, a common symptom of the sort of hallucinatory mental illness the girl exhibits.
Most environments are accompanied by their own unique music, but the overarching style is droning and repetitive in a uniquely unsettling way. The tracks evolve over the course of the game, drowning out and coming back into focus between scenes. Eventually, when the girl’s medication starts to wear off, the noise is replaced altogether with wind. In stark contrast from the rest of the game, the last few minutes are completely silent.
As you can see, there’s no shortage of thought put into all of Milk’s small details. It manages to tell a captivating story in the span of only 20 minutes, filled to the brim with character and intrigue. There’s a perfect balance of half-explained story threads and vagueness to really engage the player, who can come to their own conclusions about many parts of the narrative. This is one of my favorite flavors of horror worldbuilding - abstract, strange, compelling you to fill in the blanks yourself.
Milk is absolutely worth a play for me. I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys psychological horror - and possibly also to those who want to try out some new kinds of visual novels. The jumpscares are light and manageable, yet the atmosphere remains consistently thick and creepy. Good writing, great visuals, and equally great sound design combine into a disturbing, unique experience that I loved.
Visuals: 4.5/5
Sound: 4.5/5
Story: 4/5
Gameplay: 2.5/5
Worldbuilding: 4.5/5
Overall Game Score: 4/5
It’s a small, neat story about the difficulties of interacting with the outside world when you’re not doing well. The girl’s perception of reality is heavily skewed; she views the people around her as monsters that are, in her words, ‘probably more scared of her than she is of them’. She speaks often of the endless stream of medications she’s taken in both the past and present to try to help her conditions. The very first time we meet her, she’s rehearsing her script for buying milk for nearly the twentieth time. The girl even exhibits symptoms of OCD; for example, counting her footsteps, getting upset when she walks ‘incorrectly’, and taking a dislike to the letter ‘O’ because of the intrusive thoughts it gives her.
Throughout the game, the player will be given the chance to comment on the girl’s train of thought or outward actions. Sometimes, there’s only one option, simply serving as a way to keep the dialogue flowing. Other times, you’re given two (or more) options - usually to either direct the girl’s thought process and actions, or to senselessly degrade her. However, if you choose to be mean too often, you’ll earn a ‘game over’ accompanied by a small jumpscare where the girl asserts that you’re not helpful to her. You may then restart (and choose to be nicer this time!)
Milk provides a very interesting take on having both a mental illness-focused narrative and an unreliable narrator. It may not be saying anything particularly new or groundbreaking, but the lens through which its story and main character are expressed is enough to make it feel fresh. A huge part of this is because you never once take direct control of the girl herself, instead acting as nothing but a voice in her head the entire game - the player to her visual novel protagonist, as she puts it (a role you’re also filling literally.) The way the girl perceives the world is captivatingly surreal and uncanny, including her largely self-contained interactions.
But Milk’s charm is not only due to good writing, but also beautiful art (and sound direction.) The top half of the screen serves as your view into the girl’s world. Its pixel art is intentionally minimalist, to the point of being near-obfuscated; its color palette is made up entirely of dark red, bright purple, and black. The environments depicted are mundane in their normalcy - a street, a light stop, a store - yet they feel so strange under this presentation. They’re the half-skewed world of someone struggling to separate their mind from reality.
Peppered throughout this seemingly rather normal town are fascinating horror elements which lean much further into the unknown. While at the store, the girl interacts with a few monsters who challenge the bravery she’s drummed up to go out and interact with the world. Yet, easily the most disturbing parts are the imagery revolving around her own home and family during the latter half of the game. But I won’t reveal more than that.
Just like how these visuals merge reality and delusion, the sound design does the same. A detail I found interesting is how Nikita chooses to apply the classic audio ‘babble’ to only select portions of the girl’s inner monologue. Lines meant primarily to describe the girl’s surroundings and actions may also be interspersed with her thoughts on what she’s observing; yet she clearly stays silent while doing so. Conversely, during the meager amount of dialogue she has with characters outside of the player, she’s accompanied by a chiptune ‘babble’. What’s notable is that this ‘babble’, along with quotation marks, are also applied to certain thoughts of hers - but only the ones directly addressed to the player. AKA, the voice in her head. This implies she may be speaking to herself out loud, a common symptom of the sort of hallucinatory mental illness the girl exhibits.
Most environments are accompanied by their own unique music, but the overarching style is droning and repetitive in a uniquely unsettling way. The tracks evolve over the course of the game, drowning out and coming back into focus between scenes. Eventually, when the girl’s medication starts to wear off, the noise is replaced altogether with wind. In stark contrast from the rest of the game, the last few minutes are completely silent.
As you can see, there’s no shortage of thought put into all of Milk’s small details. It manages to tell a captivating story in the span of only 20 minutes, filled to the brim with character and intrigue. There’s a perfect balance of half-explained story threads and vagueness to really engage the player, who can come to their own conclusions about many parts of the narrative. This is one of my favorite flavors of horror worldbuilding - abstract, strange, compelling you to fill in the blanks yourself.
Milk is absolutely worth a play for me. I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys psychological horror - and possibly also to those who want to try out some new kinds of visual novels. The jumpscares are light and manageable, yet the atmosphere remains consistently thick and creepy. Good writing, great visuals, and equally great sound design combine into a disturbing, unique experience that I loved.
Visuals: 4.5/5
Sound: 4.5/5
Story: 4/5
Gameplay: 2.5/5
Worldbuilding: 4.5/5
Overall Game Score: 4/5
Aleyceps
2 months ago