jesus fucking christ this is so good. It's definitely one of those if-you-get-it-you-get-it games for sure. I really appreciate so much of it. It feels like a shattered mirror of a game to me, and though some of the pieces aren't necessarily pointed at me, the ones that are reflect with crystal clarity. The writing is really good, it did such an amazing job of weaving together multiple scenes happening simultaneously in a way that didn't feel confusing at all, everything just flowed so well together.
The sheer pain, misery, anguish of the girls and dogs living not just in hell but in a decaying corpse of a world is so potent. To me, Snek is best at portraying these dead, rotting worlds following girls and its whose freakish nature puts them in the funnel of reality's meat grinder, desperately trying to claw their way out and bring as many others with them as they can. Loner Dog feels almost like the logical endpoint of that concept, a definite peak in it's portrayal of this from the few of it's games I've played. It's violently hopeless to me, a constant assertion of the impossibility of a meaning besides to help your fellow sister and try to enjoy the little of life you can squeeze into the margins you've been shoved into; "you deserve a tomorrow worth knowing" is a chapter title that really really stuck with me for sure. The little bits of hope or kindness in the game are fought for tooth and nail, the characters have to go far out of their way for it almost always, and when not it's often just a bandaid on the bullet hole, something to try and ease the pre-existing overwhelming pain of their situation. A few of the situations were uncannily realistic, written in a way that shows a real familiarity and understanding of them, the fucked-up-ness of it. "The world is not a gentle place" is another chapter title that stood out to me; not only is it not a gentle place, it is actively cruel and antagonistic towards the happiness and existence of these characters, as reality often feels to myself and many others like me.
As for characters, I really really like all of them honestly. All of them feel like people I've either been or met, and they feel so raw and real, freaks like those I know and love, if not a bit more intense. The intensity serves the aesthetic and feeling of the story quite well though. Haley's story is especially tragic as I'm sure anyone who's played it would agree, but it's a familiar tragedy. All too familiar, a zing from moving in a direction my deeper scars make difficult from nerve damage, if that makes sense. Harsh Noise might be my favorite character because of just how checked out they are the whole time, they're really cool I think even though they're kind of just on the sidelines the whole time save for a couple scenes. Their tats are so cool, also I have an affinity for using "Noise" as a name because of things in my own life, so I just kind of immediately thought they were cool.
The music is really really well done and chosen, I want to use them for background music when I'm talking to friends a lot of the time now. The art is so good and fits it so well. I could gush about this game endlessly. Amazing work. Another one I'll likely be thinking about for a long time after this.