Milk Outside a Bag of Milk Outside a Bag of Milk Review (Mara)
When the game touches the heart.
Milk outside a bag of milk outside a bag of milk is a sequel to the first game, where our unnamed girl managed to buy some milk from the store and return home to her mother, during the first game we saw the world through her eyes, we experienced the emotions she feels when interacting with people and the world around her in general and we learned a few things relating to her past, specifically her trauma about her dad which caused her to see the world as she sees it now. We exist, but we don't actually exist at the same time, because we are only her thoughts, albeit delusional thoughts. But she believes we exist and that's what matters in her world.
Moving on from summarizing the first game, this game continues from where we left off in the first game, the girl reaches home and once again we are here to help her with any problems she might have before she goes to bed. We learn more about her past, whether that past is about her friendships on the internet or her earlier experiences in her school days, take your pick. Like the first game, this game shines a light on the many difficulties people with severe mental disorders face every day.
It also mostly accurately shows the symptoms of many of these disorders, as somebody who has ADHD and OCD, I can relate to some of the things our unnamed protagonist goes through. While I'm no expert, I think she seems to have either Schizophrenia or Psychosis and a severe OCD, these two disorders are different but they have many symptoms that overlap, a previous diagnosis of OCD is correlated with being at a greater risk for developing schizophrenia. Her trauma related past would also explain why her OCD is so severe, trauma can intensify the symptoms of OCD.
Besides seeing myself in the girl, I also saw others in her, schizophrenia runs in my mother's side of the family, and my grandmother (May she rest in peace.) had a severe case of schizophrenia, there is a scene where our girl refuses to go to the balcony because she has a false belief, she believes somebody, someone, or something is watching and stalking her. This is pretty much the same thing my grandmother used to do. So when it comes to the representation of mental illness, this game does a greater job at it than anything I have seen before.
Besides these things, the art style in the game is simply great, it truly looks strange and alien-like to my eyes, but then I am reminded that this is how our girl sees the world all the time, she has lived with it for a long time, and it's her reality. Which makes me feel all the more empathetic to her situation. Overall, this game definitely deserves all the praise it gets and then some, I highly recommend it at pretty much any price, whether it's on sale or not, it's worth every penny.
Lastly, while not necessarily related to the game itself, I want to urge anyone who might be reading this to be kind towards those with mental illnesses, or any person for that matter. Pretty much any serious mental disorder is associated with a reduced life span due to reasons that are different for each. In the case of schizophrenia, the reported rate of suicide in individuals with schizophrenia is between 4% and 13%, and attempted rate of suicide is between 18% to 55%, suicide is the number one cause of the reduced life span of schizophrenic people. And schizophrenia, on average, decreases the life span of a person by at least 10 years. Source
Please, choose your words carefully when speaking to another human being, one nice word might just save a life.
PS : My only complaint about this game would be that it is too short, I wish it was longer, but oh well.