Milk Oustide... offers a very interesting look into the life and thoughts of a late-teens girl suffering from serious mental illness and trauma. You play as a sort of self-talk, inner voice of the protagonist, generally representing the more rational side of her thoughts. Sometimes you are presented with only irrational choices, though. It creates a very interesting dynamic where you're both playing as the protagonist and not; trying to help her cope but sometimes not able to. It's a clever framing that captures the hopelessness the protagonist can experience at times. I enjoyed the metatextual element of the main character viewing you as a person playing a visual novel/point and click game.

The biggest selling point is perhaps the absolutely unique atmosphere. The art does an excellent job of shifting to match the mental state of the protagonist. The color palette, detail, and even overall style change between many of the scenes in the game to create this effect. The music was similarly on point in creating the feelings of dread and joy that the protagonist could quickly bounce between. There are a couple of tracks in the game that would fight right in on an atmospheric doom metal album (e.g. Sunn O))) ), which fit the themes perfectly and was very cool to hear in a video game.

My main criticism is just that I wanted a bit more. The entire game takes place over the course of the main character getting ready for bed, and takes 1-2 hours to play, depending on how many endings you go for. Even combined with the original game and its 30 minute runtime, it's just not quite enough time to really get to get to know and empathize with the protagonist to the degree I wanted. However, that doesn't keep the Milk duology from being a worthwhile and unique way to spend an evening.