I just finished this after like being on and off it for a bit over a month, and holy fucking shit did it hit so close to home. I've never had a story hit me like a truck like this did, and of course I had to find it after my attempt a week prior. This game is so fucking good, please play it!
i just read this all in one sitting and i wanna leave a comment but i can't formulate anything thought-out rn maybe later but for now i just want to say i feel very seen regarding the spaghetti with ketchup. that is all for now.
This is... so beyond anything I have ever read, and I want so much more. I've sat on the outside of some of the topics written here, but I've never delved into it because it is so outside my own experience and I guess... never knew quite what to expect? Or if I could even enjoy it "properly" as someone who is very... I guess normie is the word that would describe me lmao. I don't have experience with any of the truly scary shit in real life, so reading about it in fiction... it feels like a whole other world. Especially since I can't even begin to guess how much is based in reality, and how much is based in intense fiction that is built upon that reality. It's scary to think about, but it still something that speaks to me.
I hope I can find more creators that write and create this sort of thing. I don't really know what to search or where to start, but I'm certain I can find it eventually. At a pace that I can handle, because as interesting as it is it can get overwhelming.
I haven't finished this quite yet, but I am very much invested in finishing it, I just had to take a break to think a bit. And to let the stuff settle, cause I know there is going to be a lot more, and I want to enjoy this, not get overwhelmed.
I kinda just... wanna say thank you to those who made this, and submitting this to the jam. I found this jam completely by accident, perusing it on a whim, and so coming across this was lucky for me! It also inspires me a lot... as an artist, and a writer. This whole jam has.
Edit: Returning to this after I finished the game and it was overwhelming... but it also got me out of my own head and feelings from past trauma enough to actually feel comfortable to tell my friends how much I love them. Cause I am scared to do that due to past trauma + losing people. I've been reminded of how important making sure the people I care about know I do, regardless of if we stay in each other's lives or if we move on.
Fuuuuuuuuck. I don't even know what to say. For the past couple of days that I've been reading this visual novel, I could feel my heart scratching against my rib cage. No matter what I was doing, there was this growing sense of heaviness. Funnily enough, I felt the calmest while reading Loner_Dog.
I'm normally not into this sort of stuff. I was raised very religious, although I've long left that by now. I remember when I read your other novel: She was Swallowed by the Sun. It should have felt wrong, but it didn't. I should be revolted, disgusted that such a thing would even exist, but I wasn't. How could I even think that when the world these characters inhabited was so much more fucked up, when our world was so much more fucked up.
Loner_Dog was on my list for a while. I felt an allure to get back into this genre (I've found out that yuri is either the most gutwrenching, despairing, what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-this-world or the sweetest, most heartwarming thing you've ever read). I felt captivated by all of these characters. I could relate to their feelings, their attempts to feel whole. I saw past exes or friends in others, and some things made more sense. I remember my journal entry after Haley killed herself. It was literally 10 straight pages as I sat there listening to Everywhere at the End of Time (the fifth album is literally Noise). I wrote something along the lines of, "If only everyone could read this. If only everyone could realize how fucked up we are as humans. Once we bring ourselves down to that level, then we can all be beautiful." And I think that's why I kept looking forward to reading this day after long day.
I am not done with Loner_Dog. I am about to go on a night walk and then journal about it more before heading to sleep. Maybe have some fun thoughts while we're at it. I'm not even trans, although it has been crawling on the edges on my mind for a couple of months now. I want to be beautiful if that makes sense. Thank you for writing this. This is a masterpiece.
Written 10/17/2025! Took a while to be trusted to comment...
I finished this game last night sometime past 4am. My Bluetooth earbuds I’d been using all day finally gave up partway through the credits, so I remember staring at the screen in silence but for a ceiling fan after their little cheery power-off tone. And then staring down the bed at my body, also in silence, colored in only by the fuzzy grays that are typical of freshly dark-adjusted eyes. I simultaneously hadn’t drunk anything in hours and really had to go piss. But I sat there for a little while, by measure of my who-knows-how-reliable mental clock, and just kinda became aware of how empty my brain was. I think Argo echoed a similar sentiment at some point - “I will have thoughts on this,” or something like that, but I didn’t have any thoughts just then. They weren’t eager to come either. Trying to will thoughts about the game into my head only held dim sentence fragments at the periphery of my consciousness, and even that required active effort to keep them from slipping away.
By the time I closed my laptop I was dehydrated enough to be nauseous even without the contents of the game on my mind so I kind of quietly crept up out of bed in the room I was sharing and out the door and into the bathroom to cup sink water into my hands and drink, since I didn’t want to rattle around in the kitchen for a cup and wake people up. I messaged the friend who suggested that I play the game (well, it was more of a “hey this game will fuck you up horribly and you probably shouldn’t play it if you’re squeamish and please do actually read all the content warnings but it’s also really good” but you get the idea) for them to see in the morning. With whatever I could muster to say.
And then I scrounged in the dark for my chargers in my backpack and crept back into the bedroom. And I got in bed and slept, doing my best to be quiet.
(𖦹﹏𖦹;)
Uh. It’s been more than 24 hours now and all that’s really come of my brain is some self reflection and a vague sense of nausea and grief whenever I think about the climax. (no, Roaches, not that kind) There’s probably more to come (...I'm not doing this on purpose) but I wanted to write a comment before I forget.
I kept seeing myself in the dialogue, or more precisely, seeing trains of thought I’ve had before. Sometimes with eerily similar phrasing. Just, like, thoughts on suicide. Yearning. The whole “what would happen if I cut my dick off oh I would bleed out; oh that’s a deeply unpleasant image to have in my head uururururughhh,,,” And more emotional words. Lots of emotions. I have a bunch of screenshots of dialogue that resonated with me, from multiple characters. That was disconcerting, just because it feels like… these aren’t ideal people to be relating to, but it also felt weirdly nice to see, well reflected in a piece of media, the nights I’ve spent spiraling down miscellaneous unhealthy thought patterns. I guess we’re all one big unhappy trans family.
There was also a bit of genuinely good relationship advice, I felt, and this was an unexpected place to find that.
It was also an unexpected place to find some of the people I know. Fuck. I have a bit of a Noni in my life right now, for one. The others I just see fragments of in the characters. But, yeah. It changed how I see some of those relationships, not for the worse, I don’t think.
This meant a lot to me. It also left me on the floor stim-shaking my leg in some manner I’d compare to a tail wag if it was for happy reasons, my throat tight with disgust, looking away from the screen because I’d been slowing down through reading that paragraph and oh my god needed to stop on that word before my body felt any stiffer or I would freak out. It also really makes me want to go write something. I fuck with the vibes heavily, and the aesthetic is sick, and the music is cool, and raaaaggghhhhh I love hurting myself with terribly painful pieces of media that are also really emotional and artistic and wonderful……
I'm gonna hopefully go make art now (belonging to the more general definition encompassing various creative media) because the pixies are tingling inside my blood. I'm also gonna keep thinking about this for ages. Maybe partially because oh my god who would I talk about this with besides like that one friend lmao
I was always bad at writing conclusion paragraphs.
I'm not looking at myself the same, nor talking to people the same… which means this shit was peak. Hell yeah. Trans rights and all that. Love you.
P.S. I bought the domain loner.dog to redirect here. I might even remember to renew it when it expires. That doesn't really affect you, but I think it's cool.
Your comment is absolutely wonderful and delightful to read, a gentle brush on so many delicate topics, and it warms me to hear you were affected in these ways.
We fucking love intense and fucked up art out here!! I hope your art endeavors go well ehehe, love you too!!
also,, I am floored and honored that you took the time and effort and money to set up the redirect holy fucking shit!!! this is so fucking cool <3
(and if you feel like it, you can contact me if you wanna get more folks in your life to talk to loner dog about :3)
This took over my life for more than a week, led me to insights about what kind of person I want to be and what I care about and it's still having effects.
I liked the soundtrack so much I got both the OST and the licensed tracks listed in the credits. Does anybody know what the track is that plays right after you start a new game? It doesn't seem to be part of either of those.
reading this has been comforting to say the least. it reminds me of my friends, the people i've met, the communities i've been in, the good, the bad, everything. i have a lot of words and thoughts for this but no good way to really put them all together. it reminds me a lot of my own mind, and the mind of my closest friends, and those who are left in the past. it makes me miss people i knew. i dont know. its so real and raw. it really makes you think. i wish there was a way for me to hug the memories of the people you've invoked. i'm in a better place than i was, being the past self this reminds me of, and it just...rips into you a bit. i see a lot of myself in maya. you truly do need to take the initiative on your own to change, no matter whats going on, you have to force yourself to heal. that shit hurts. maybe i'll come back to this later maybe i won't. just know that i love you
i haven't technically finished this yet, but it's so fucking good. i love the music and atmosphere and likea rt direction and art style and movable popup things and the cgs and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!! i can't wait to play more tomorrow and also play your other games (despite living in the uk and itch.io being pissy about things).
LONER_DOG is the most disruptive (yet humanist) piece of art I have consumed in my entire life, full stop and without competition.
Whereas the majority of current trans representation and advocacy is optics-oriented and often even apologetic, LONER_DOG unflinchingly and unashamedly yells "FUCK YOU!! LOOK AT ME!!" straight in the face of cisgender society and then spits in its eye.
Many of LONER_DOG's metaphors and lines of dialogue are unsettlingly deep-cut archetypal ideas pulled from the bottom of the collective unconscious sludge of the chronically online transfem community. At times it felt as if LONER_DOG was reading my mind, crawling through its oft-avoided alleyways and drainage tunnels and showing me grainy flip-phone photos of the long decomposed skeletons it found. In its ~5 hour runtime, LONER_DOG made me throw up two times, and cry at least four.
LONER_DOG does not ask of you to accept or even sympathize with its characters. It simply asks you to bear witness to the absurdity of lifestyles and behaviors that can occur when the world refuses to interface with you on even a surface level. In LONER_DOG's interrogation of your capacity for tolerance of the most extreme and depraved margins of the transfeminine world, it ultimately asks if you are capable of tolerating yourself. (Which you'll likely find to be quite palatable in comparison.)
There is much more to be said about LONER_DOG, but really, it speaks for itself. Stop reading this and play LONER_DOG right now. (Much like the lives of its characters, LONER_DOG is best enjoyed drunk and high out of your mind.)
From a 25 year old tgirl struggling to find a crack to fit into in the world, thank you Remilia, Blood Machine, Jane Gorelove, red_kino, and Henni for creating this piece of art that has so aggressively shifted my perspective on life.
I'm planning on playing this but just wanted to say that all the comments under me remind me of how i felt after i finished reading I love your cruddy lmao
Debaucherous. Grotesque. Unflinchingly beautiful. I cannot remember the last, or maybe even first, time I've felt so immediately entranced and completely consumed by a visual novel. I was transported to their world; I was just as immoral and excited about this fact as these incredibly well-written characters and I reveled in every second of it!! Seriously just amazing lol, such a raw and vulnerable piece of art and I applaud you endlessly for making it <3 it seems so many other people have felt a connection to Loner Dog and that in itself is a huge accomplishment! Excited to delve into more of your work o:
ive been... spending the last 3 hours or so trying to decipher my feelings on this vn, i finished it and went to bed, unable to stay awake. im sure ill have mnore thoughts when i think on it for days. weeks
i dreamed about it ...
this vn i think will change my life... i think it already has. it feels like bile in my chest when i stare at myself in the mirror after i havent shaved in three days im just... i dont know, this story has ripped things out of me that ive been afraid to confront for a long time. things i buried like so many dead bodies
...
argo and i have enough in common to make it hurt.
this story feels like a trampled grave ... thank you
alright so im writing this at like, 2 am because this vn ripped up basically every grave i had in my head and sent me into a nearly two day long bpd bender and im still kinda riding the mania, ive realized a whole lot of things, been slowly making my way through the rest of your stuff
im attempting to pick up the pieces of my mental landscape and put myself back together cause it wasnt just a few things this unburied like i thought, it cause more or less a ripple that has been smashing every wall i had in my head, and leading me to realize how much ive completely suppressed myself to please other people. and i do wanna say it wasnt entirely just this vn, but more that it was the last drop in the bucket before it tipped over
ive realized a lot about myself and can now firmly say that i will be myself for the first time when its done, its like... being reborn in a way, i was already almost there but this piece of art ripped me out of the womb a bit before i was ready so im stuck fixing shit until i am
i will have this as a marker in my transition as pre and post loner dog
i dont even know how to explain this to my therapist, i dont even know if i should try. i dont know if i could say shit without getting committed lol
sorry if this is rambly, like i said still kinda riding a mania high and it feels like im exhausted and wired at the same time but ill probably be back in a few weeks to put a more stable explanation here
see you then
-a muttbrained puppyfreak whos been unshackled for the first time and is full of rage at the world
Omgg I completely missed this response, sorry for not getting back sooner!! These are some incredibly powerful words; Having created it, I also feel a pre / post loner dog split in my life, and I am honored and ecstatic to hear you've had a similar experience!
I hope the mania had a good / chill comedown <3 (if it has by now)
from my own experience, my therapist commended my self reflection and now I used art to work through self-destructive patterns and mental spirals, and how I identified those patterns to put into words. maybe that can help? as long as your therapist doesn't have an insanely inflated ego, the phrase "I found myself in a piece of art and healed myself through it" should be good news. therapists love when we do their jobs for them dfhjgbjdfg (or more like, they're there as professional guardrails / threads and we generally do our own healing anyways)
loving the rambly nature, cannot wait to hear more from you! (here or feel free to reach out on my socials as well if you like)
Found this game on a morning when I woke up very horny searching for snuff games. Only got about 25% point and don't plan on finishing it. I looked up some reviews and from what I gather some of the characters commit suicide and I think reading that would break me. I love all the charterers as they are all unique and i see my friends and even myself in them. it was a very good read and I have to force myself to put it down for my own mental health. This game has changed me and will probably stick with me for the rest of my life. I'm gonna use it as motivation to give up my guro addiction and better myself before i see/do something that cant be unseen/done. 100% recommend the game up until the 25% mark.
it's taken me several weeks to gather my thoughts on this game. after my first hour or so of playtime, i was pretty convinced that i would get filtered by this game and that it straight up was not meant for me, but i ended up drastically wrong in that assessment.
i think that, in writing this kind of story, its easier to tend toward one of two extremes: either of making its characters legible, explaining away or excusing all of their worst qualities in a kind of falsely reassuring way, or on the other hand, just veering totally off the nihilism cliff and saying that nothing matters because everything is hopeless and nothing better is possible.
i found that this story somehow rejects both of these frames. dancing between them, the characters arent made to justify themselves for who they are, yet theyre still made to be accountable for their actions because eachother are all they have; theyre allowed to just be human. seeing this portrayed so sincerely opened up a lot of space for me to look honestly at myself and not be so afraid of what i might find. this is really a huge relief especially when it feels like everything else in life is telling you to go in the opposite direction. wherever im headed, your art at least shows that its possible to come out the other side. thank you for sharing it. <3
god. this game made me sick. i felt seen in ways that made me viscerally uncomfortable in the best worst way and i simultaneously loathe and absolutely fucking love these characters with all of my heart because they remind me of myself in the worst worst ways and it's awfully comforting but also just awful. such a raw showcase of the horror of this world and the people being endlessly fucked by those horrors, circumstantial or self-inflicted, controlled or not, just horrible things happening to horrible people in a horrible world. displayed in a way that somewhat inspired me. just like,. made me so intensely and deeply want to love and appreciate everyone in my life as much as i possibly can. this game made my tummy ache and it made me cry a lot. ugh. such is life.
I spend about 2 months – on and off – playing this game. I find it really difficult commenting on LD. I contributed music to the game and I befriended Snek. So, I’m not coming from a neutral place >.< Regarding the story tho … It was clear from the get go, that the story and its characters would be wildly outside of my own experience.
And this is what makes it so difficult to comment on for me. I really wanted to be into the story as others described – instead I found myself disagreeing a lot with the characters. I simply lack the experience in a lot of places. It was like getting shown a different (tragic and difficult) world.
What made this read easier to wrap my head around, was writing kinda live reactions to Snek, and using the scenes as conversations starters. I found that between all the grime in the story there were always moments of wisdom and care. Also: The writing is hella good. It is funny how much of Snek’s “voice” is shining through in these dialogs. I snickered at a lot of the narrators remarks. And, the use of the multiple text boxes was simply outstanding. It really created a cinematic feel in some cases and skillfully overwhelmed me in others. There were mayne more instances were she used the interface to great effect.
I loved Blood Machine’s art work. This digital drawing-over-an-existing-painting/photograph-style was really cool.
I’m enthralled by how skillful Snek picks and uses music. The music came from three people composing directly for the game and a range of licenced / CC songs. And they still feel super cohesive and fit each scene so well.
Some closing words for this comment ^_^ :
Those girls are neither in a good nor stable place. But, I think LD shows that despite everything life goes on, and it is worth sticking through, because there is tangible hope for things and people to improve.
I was a realatively normie-coded transfemme before this came into my life. Loner Dog//Snuff Puppy Carnage Society is the most intense piece of media I have ever consumed. This VN gives you a gut wound and then sticks its vile, unwashed hand inside your entrails to pop and squeeze them. Several times I had to put down this VN to take a break. Several times I wanted to vomit. Several times I kept coming back for more. This VN changed how I engage with media. This VN changed what media I even want to engage with. This VN spoiled me. Nothing I will ever consume will bring me to where this did. What this VN has done to me I will die with.
There is no proper way to numerically rate something as visceral as this. This will keep you up at night.
This is some of the most vile shit I have ever read
do NOT take the content warnings lightly, there aren't many pieces of art that are this expressive
I had trouble breathing at times, my throat hurt so much from crying, I felt absolutely miserable
The way this game portrays every single part of the trans experience in the most authentic way, the usage of slurs, constant self hatred, the herd like dynamics, the trauma, the struggle of life.
The struggle of life or rather staying alive, as someone that has struggled with staying alive for many years it perfectly depicts the casualness of self harm and how easy it is to fall back into habits.
Which is also the reason that some scenes were extremely hard to get through.
This one of the most vile and heartbreaking stories I've ever read, it feels so real, there is nothing out there that comes close to the morbid beauty of this game, this goes far beyond toxic yuri, it is genuine art.
The seemingly infinite amount of discomfort and pain I felt while playing is what makes LONER_DOG so good.
thank you for making this, this was incredible.
stay safe, there always is a way, things will get better and you deserve to live <3
Allow me to share some assorted thoughts of mine that I've written elsewhere about this fine VN of yours:
This shit made my stomach churn, made me stare so hard at my screen I nearly burned a hole through it, and gave me flashbacks to being the unpaid and unappreciated relationship therapist for all of my fuckass high school friends. It's incredible.
Depraved, disgusting, visceral, raw; reflective of deep pain, fear, love, and joy; and brimming with goddamn cartoon yellow barrel filled with glowing green radioactive sludge Toxic Yuri
Call this Loner_Dog the way these toxic dynamics make me want to be a Loner, Dog
Phenomenal, spectacular, and beautiful work from top to bottom and start to finish, heheheh~
This game made me cry like a goddamn bitch, fuck. There were a couple story beats that touched on a lot things I had personally experienced transitioning and the whole thing left me with a lot of dread. It was like gazing into a dark mirror and wondering if I'm destined follow down the same road. I fully recommend this game to any that can stomach it's themes. The rest I want to talk about is spoilers so play the rest of the game first. ___ Haley and Maya's relationship hit way too close to one I'm currently in. I wanted to leave it, but I am terrified she'll kill herself just like Haley did. Haley's death hit me incredibly hard and I actually felt incredible anger with how the body was treated. I've felt similarly inadequate and it hurts when people push away from you.
Argo and Venessa mirrored a lot of gay love that brought joy to my life transitioning. The manic obsession and grocery shopping together are fond memories in my head. I've even struggled similarly with being unable to say no and put down boundaries like with Argo and Noni.
Audrey is the unsung hero and she deserved her crash out mid story.
Thank you for this experience, it's a wonderful work of art.
i dont even know where to begin with writing this comment
this was one of the most fucked up things i have ever read.
this was also one of the most beautiful and well written things i have ever read. i read the content warnings, and i was super ok with all of that, but fuck. i had ZERO warning that this game was going to make me so emotional.
this is going to stick with me for a very long time and ugh i want to tell every single person i know about this and how good the story is... but this would probably be a little too fucked up to show my current friends :((
i have so many thoughts and questions about the making of this and how you created the world and the (insanely well written) characters and the themes you used and aaaaaa
this is going to stick with me for a very very long time. thank you. im 1000% checking out all your other works after this
hi :3 I'm really glad to hear loner dog impacted you in the way it did <3
If you're curious about the development, you can find a small post archive on my website, or you can also just reach out directly! Just DM me on any of my socials (handy overview on the website too)
also if you want more friends for this type of stuff, I'm running a small discord server! if you reach out to me I can get you on that too :3
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I never comment on anything, but this touched me, in a way i still dont really understand.
Also, theres a track that plays when argo first comes to audreys house and it's so beautiful and i have no idea what it is.
Thank you so much for the comment <3
That song should be Electric mandocello drone in Gm by spurioustransients
I just finished this after like being on and off it for a bit over a month, and holy fucking shit did it hit so close to home.
I've never had a story hit me like a truck like this did, and of course I had to find it after my attempt a week prior. This game is so fucking good, please play it!
i just read this all in one sitting and i wanna leave a comment but i can't formulate anything thought-out rn maybe later but for now i just want to say i feel very seen regarding the spaghetti with ketchup. that is all for now.
This is... so beyond anything I have ever read, and I want so much more. I've sat on the outside of some of the topics written here, but I've never delved into it because it is so outside my own experience and I guess... never knew quite what to expect? Or if I could even enjoy it "properly" as someone who is very... I guess normie is the word that would describe me lmao. I don't have experience with any of the truly scary shit in real life, so reading about it in fiction... it feels like a whole other world. Especially since I can't even begin to guess how much is based in reality, and how much is based in intense fiction that is built upon that reality. It's scary to think about, but it still something that speaks to me.
I hope I can find more creators that write and create this sort of thing. I don't really know what to search or where to start, but I'm certain I can find it eventually. At a pace that I can handle, because as interesting as it is it can get overwhelming.
I haven't finished this quite yet, but I am very much invested in finishing it, I just had to take a break to think a bit. And to let the stuff settle, cause I know there is going to be a lot more, and I want to enjoy this, not get overwhelmed.
I kinda just... wanna say thank you to those who made this, and submitting this to the jam. I found this jam completely by accident, perusing it on a whim, and so coming across this was lucky for me! It also inspires me a lot... as an artist, and a writer. This whole jam has.
Edit: Returning to this after I finished the game and it was overwhelming... but it also got me out of my own head and feelings from past trauma enough to actually feel comfortable to tell my friends how much I love them. Cause I am scared to do that due to past trauma + losing people. I've been reminded of how important making sure the people I care about know I do, regardless of if we stay in each other's lives or if we move on.
Thank you, again.
Fuuuuuuuuck. I don't even know what to say. For the past couple of days that I've been reading this visual novel, I could feel my heart scratching against my rib cage. No matter what I was doing, there was this growing sense of heaviness. Funnily enough, I felt the calmest while reading Loner_Dog.
I'm normally not into this sort of stuff. I was raised very religious, although I've long left that by now. I remember when I read your other novel: She was Swallowed by the Sun. It should have felt wrong, but it didn't. I should be revolted, disgusted that such a thing would even exist, but I wasn't. How could I even think that when the world these characters inhabited was so much more fucked up, when our world was so much more fucked up.
Loner_Dog was on my list for a while. I felt an allure to get back into this genre (I've found out that yuri is either the most gutwrenching, despairing, what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-this-world or the sweetest, most heartwarming thing you've ever read). I felt captivated by all of these characters. I could relate to their feelings, their attempts to feel whole. I saw past exes or friends in others, and some things made more sense. I remember my journal entry after Haley killed herself. It was literally 10 straight pages as I sat there listening to Everywhere at the End of Time (the fifth album is literally Noise). I wrote something along the lines of, "If only everyone could read this. If only everyone could realize how fucked up we are as humans. Once we bring ourselves down to that level, then we can all be beautiful." And I think that's why I kept looking forward to reading this day after long day.
I am not done with Loner_Dog. I am about to go on a night walk and then journal about it more before heading to sleep. Maybe have some fun thoughts while we're at it. I'm not even trans, although it has been crawling on the edges on my mind for a couple of months now. I want to be beautiful if that makes sense. Thank you for writing this. This is a masterpiece.
Written 10/17/2025! Took a while to be trusted to comment...
I finished this game last night sometime past 4am. My Bluetooth earbuds I’d been using all day finally gave up partway through the credits, so I remember staring at the screen in silence but for a ceiling fan after their little cheery power-off tone. And then staring down the bed at my body, also in silence, colored in only by the fuzzy grays that are typical of freshly dark-adjusted eyes. I simultaneously hadn’t drunk anything in hours and really had to go piss. But I sat there for a little while, by measure of my who-knows-how-reliable mental clock, and just kinda became aware of how empty my brain was. I think Argo echoed a similar sentiment at some point - “I will have thoughts on this,” or something like that, but I didn’t have any thoughts just then. They weren’t eager to come either. Trying to will thoughts about the game into my head only held dim sentence fragments at the periphery of my consciousness, and even that required active effort to keep them from slipping away.
By the time I closed my laptop I was dehydrated enough to be nauseous even without the contents of the game on my mind so I kind of quietly crept up out of bed in the room I was sharing and out the door and into the bathroom to cup sink water into my hands and drink, since I didn’t want to rattle around in the kitchen for a cup and wake people up. I messaged the friend who suggested that I play the game (well, it was more of a “hey this game will fuck you up horribly and you probably shouldn’t play it if you’re squeamish and please do actually read all the content warnings but it’s also really good” but you get the idea) for them to see in the morning. With whatever I could muster to say.
And then I scrounged in the dark for my chargers in my backpack and crept back into the bedroom. And I got in bed and slept, doing my best to be quiet.
(𖦹﹏𖦹;)
Uh. It’s been more than 24 hours now and all that’s really come of my brain is some self reflection and a vague sense of nausea and grief whenever I think about the climax. (no, Roaches, not that kind) There’s probably more to come (...I'm not doing this on purpose) but I wanted to write a comment before I forget.
I kept seeing myself in the dialogue, or more precisely, seeing trains of thought I’ve had before. Sometimes with eerily similar phrasing. Just, like, thoughts on suicide. Yearning. The whole “what would happen if I cut my dick off oh I would bleed out; oh that’s a deeply unpleasant image to have in my head uururururughhh,,,” And more emotional words. Lots of emotions. I have a bunch of screenshots of dialogue that resonated with me, from multiple characters. That was disconcerting, just because it feels like… these aren’t ideal people to be relating to, but it also felt weirdly nice to see, well reflected in a piece of media, the nights I’ve spent spiraling down miscellaneous unhealthy thought patterns. I guess we’re all one big unhappy trans family.
There was also a bit of genuinely good relationship advice, I felt, and this was an unexpected place to find that.
It was also an unexpected place to find some of the people I know. Fuck. I have a bit of a Noni in my life right now, for one. The others I just see fragments of in the characters. But, yeah. It changed how I see some of those relationships, not for the worse, I don’t think.
This meant a lot to me. It also left me on the floor stim-shaking my leg in some manner I’d compare to a tail wag if it was for happy reasons, my throat tight with disgust, looking away from the screen because I’d been slowing down through reading that paragraph and oh my god needed to stop on that word before my body felt any stiffer or I would freak out. It also really makes me want to go write something. I fuck with the vibes heavily, and the aesthetic is sick, and the music is cool, and raaaaggghhhhh I love hurting myself with terribly painful pieces of media that are also really emotional and artistic and wonderful……
I'm gonna hopefully go make art now (belonging to the more general definition encompassing various creative media) because the pixies are tingling inside my blood. I'm also gonna keep thinking about this for ages. Maybe partially because oh my god who would I talk about this with besides like that one friend lmao
I was always bad at writing conclusion paragraphs.
I'm not looking at myself the same, nor talking to people the same… which means this shit was peak. Hell yeah. Trans rights and all that. Love you.
P.S. I bought the domain loner.dog to redirect here. I might even remember to renew it when it expires. That doesn't really affect you, but I think it's cool.
Your comment is absolutely wonderful and delightful to read, a gentle brush on so many delicate topics, and it warms me to hear you were affected in these ways.
We fucking love intense and fucked up art out here!! I hope your art endeavors go well ehehe, love you too!!
also,, I am floored and honored that you took the time and effort and money to set up the redirect holy fucking shit!!! this is so fucking cool <3
(and if you feel like it, you can contact me if you wanna get more folks in your life to talk to loner dog about :3)
Thank you!! 🥺
I totally will contact you! I might even think of things to say :)
I'm really happy I played this <3
This took over my life for more than a week, led me to insights about what kind of person I want to be and what I care about and it's still having effects.
I liked the soundtrack so much I got both the OST and the licensed tracks listed in the credits. Does anybody know what the track is that plays right after you start a new game? It doesn't seem to be part of either of those.
tysm! The first music track should be Shoot-Gun by Koi-discovery
Thank you! :-)
reading this has been comforting to say the least. it reminds me of my friends, the people i've met, the communities i've been in, the good, the bad, everything. i have a lot of words and thoughts for this but no good way to really put them all together. it reminds me a lot of my own mind, and the mind of my closest friends, and those who are left in the past. it makes me miss people i knew. i dont know. its so real and raw. it really makes you think. i wish there was a way for me to hug the memories of the people you've invoked. i'm in a better place than i was, being the past self this reminds me of, and it just...rips into you a bit. i see a lot of myself in maya. you truly do need to take the initiative on your own to change, no matter whats going on, you have to force yourself to heal. that shit hurts. maybe i'll come back to this later maybe i won't. just know that i love you
collective unconscious hug!!!!
I'm glad it resonated with you as much as it did, and that you can even boast about being in a better place now!
i haven't technically finished this yet, but it's so fucking good. i love the music and atmosphere and likea rt direction and art style and movable popup things and the cgs and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!! i can't wait to play more tomorrow and also play your other games (despite living in the uk and itch.io being pissy about things).
LONER_DOG is the most disruptive (yet humanist) piece of art I have consumed in my entire life, full stop and without competition.
Whereas the majority of current trans representation and advocacy is optics-oriented and often even apologetic, LONER_DOG unflinchingly and unashamedly yells "FUCK YOU!! LOOK AT ME!!" straight in the face of cisgender society and then spits in its eye.
Many of LONER_DOG's metaphors and lines of dialogue are unsettlingly deep-cut archetypal ideas pulled from the bottom of the collective unconscious sludge of the chronically online transfem community. At times it felt as if LONER_DOG was reading my mind, crawling through its oft-avoided alleyways and drainage tunnels and showing me grainy flip-phone photos of the long decomposed skeletons it found. In its ~5 hour runtime, LONER_DOG made me throw up two times, and cry at least four.
LONER_DOG does not ask of you to accept or even sympathize with its characters. It simply asks you to bear witness to the absurdity of lifestyles and behaviors that can occur when the world refuses to interface with you on even a surface level. In LONER_DOG's interrogation of your capacity for tolerance of the most extreme and depraved margins of the transfeminine world, it ultimately asks if you are capable of tolerating yourself. (Which you'll likely find to be quite palatable in comparison.)
There is much more to be said about LONER_DOG, but really, it speaks for itself. Stop reading this and play LONER_DOG right now.
(Much like the lives of its characters, LONER_DOG is best enjoyed drunk and high out of your mind.)From a 25 year old tgirl struggling to find a crack to fit into in the world, thank you Remilia, Blood Machine, Jane Gorelove, red_kino, and Henni for creating this piece of art that has so aggressively shifted my perspective on life.
hehehe cisgender society crumbling beneath my paws >:3
thank you for feeling all these things and letting your body go through a bit of hell for it too
Very very happy about having shifted your perspective on life!!! Thank you so so much for your words, they're delightful to read <3
I'm planning on playing this but just wanted to say that all the comments under me remind me of how i felt after i finished reading I love your cruddy lmao
Debaucherous. Grotesque. Unflinchingly beautiful.
I cannot remember the last, or maybe even first, time I've felt so immediately entranced and completely consumed by a visual novel. I was transported to their world; I was just as immoral and excited about this fact as these incredibly well-written characters and I reveled in every second of it!!
Seriously just amazing lol, such a raw and vulnerable piece of art and I applaud you endlessly for making it <3 it seems so many other people have felt a connection to Loner Dog and that in itself is a huge accomplishment! Excited to delve into more of your work o:
Maybe the real snuff puppy carnage society is the one you live in right now, and sometimes the only thing you can do is make friends along the way.
ive been... spending the last 3 hours or so trying to decipher my feelings on this vn, i finished it and went to bed, unable to stay awake. im sure ill have mnore thoughts when i think on it for days. weeks
i dreamed about it
...
this vn i think will change my life... i think it already has. it feels like bile in my chest when i stare at myself in the mirror after i havent shaved in three days
im just... i dont know, this story has ripped things out of me that ive been afraid to confront for a long time. things i buried like so many dead bodies
...
argo and i have enough in common to make it hurt.
this story feels like a trampled grave ... thank you
your words are so very incredibly touching. thank you for leaving your comment, I am honored to have touched your life <3
alright so im writing this at like, 2 am because this vn ripped up basically every grave i had in my head and sent me into a nearly two day long bpd bender and im still kinda riding the mania, ive realized a whole lot of things, been slowly making my way through the rest of your stuff
im attempting to pick up the pieces of my mental landscape and put myself back together cause it wasnt just a few things this unburied like i thought, it cause more or less a ripple that has been smashing every wall i had in my head, and leading me to realize how much ive completely suppressed myself to please other people. and i do wanna say it wasnt entirely just this vn, but more that it was the last drop in the bucket before it tipped over
ive realized a lot about myself and can now firmly say that i will be myself for the first time when its done, its like... being reborn in a way, i was already almost there but this piece of art ripped me out of the womb a bit before i was ready so im stuck fixing shit until i am
i will have this as a marker in my transition as pre and post loner dog
i dont even know how to explain this to my therapist, i dont even know if i should try. i dont know if i could say shit without getting committed lol
sorry if this is rambly, like i said still kinda riding a mania high and it feels like im exhausted and wired at the same time but ill probably be back in a few weeks to put a more stable explanation here
see you then
-a muttbrained puppyfreak whos been unshackled for the first time and is full of rage at the world
Omgg I completely missed this response, sorry for not getting back sooner!! These are some incredibly powerful words; Having created it, I also feel a pre / post loner dog split in my life, and I am honored and ecstatic to hear you've had a similar experience!
I hope the mania had a good / chill comedown <3 (if it has by now)
from my own experience, my therapist commended my self reflection and now I used art to work through self-destructive patterns and mental spirals, and how I identified those patterns to put into words. maybe that can help? as long as your therapist doesn't have an insanely inflated ego, the phrase "I found myself in a piece of art and healed myself through it" should be good news. therapists love when we do their jobs for them dfhjgbjdfg (or more like, they're there as professional guardrails / threads and we generally do our own healing anyways)
loving the rambly nature, cannot wait to hear more from you! (here or feel free to reach out on my socials as well if you like)
I really enjoyed this!
<3
Found this game on a morning when I woke up very horny searching for snuff games. Only got about 25% point and don't plan on finishing it. I looked up some reviews and from what I gather some of the characters commit suicide and I think reading that would break me. I love all the charterers as they are all unique and i see my friends and even myself in them. it was a very good read and I have to force myself to put it down for my own mental health. This game has changed me and will probably stick with me for the rest of my life. I'm gonna use it as motivation to give up my guro addiction and better myself before i see/do something that cant be unseen/done. 100% recommend the game up until the 25% mark.
how do this core called?
it's taken me several weeks to gather my thoughts on this game. after my first hour or so of playtime, i was pretty convinced that i would get filtered by this game and that it straight up was not meant for me, but i ended up drastically wrong in that assessment.
i think that, in writing this kind of story, its easier to tend toward one of two extremes: either of making its characters legible, explaining away or excusing all of their worst qualities in a kind of falsely reassuring way, or on the other hand, just veering totally off the nihilism cliff and saying that nothing matters because everything is hopeless and nothing better is possible.
i found that this story somehow rejects both of these frames. dancing between them, the characters arent made to justify themselves for who they are, yet theyre still made to be accountable for their actions because eachother are all they have; theyre allowed to just be human. seeing this portrayed so sincerely opened up a lot of space for me to look honestly at myself and not be so afraid of what i might find. this is really a huge relief especially when it feels like everything else in life is telling you to go in the opposite direction. wherever im headed, your art at least shows that its possible to come out the other side. thank you for sharing it. <3
these are wonderful words to read. thank you for sharing <3
god. this game made me sick. i felt seen in ways that made me viscerally uncomfortable in the best worst way and i simultaneously loathe and absolutely fucking love these characters with all of my heart because they remind me of myself in the worst worst ways and it's awfully comforting but also just awful. such a raw showcase of the horror of this world and the people being endlessly fucked by those horrors, circumstantial or self-inflicted, controlled or not, just horrible things happening to horrible people in a horrible world. displayed in a way that somewhat inspired me. just like,. made me so intensely and deeply want to love and appreciate everyone in my life as much as i possibly can. this game made my tummy ache and it made me cry a lot. ugh.
such is life.
I spend about 2 months – on and off – playing this game. I find it really difficult commenting on LD. I contributed music to the game and I befriended Snek. So, I’m not coming from a neutral place >.< Regarding the story tho … It was clear from the get go, that the story and its characters would be wildly outside of my own experience.
And this is what makes it so difficult to comment on for me. I really wanted to be into the story as others described – instead I found myself disagreeing a lot with the characters. I simply lack the experience in a lot of places. It was like getting shown a different (tragic and difficult) world.
What made this read easier to wrap my head around, was writing kinda live reactions to Snek, and using the scenes as conversations starters. I found that between all the grime in the story there were always moments of wisdom and care. Also: The writing is hella good. It is funny how much of Snek’s “voice” is shining through in these dialogs. I snickered at a lot of the narrators remarks. And, the use of the multiple text boxes was simply outstanding. It really created a cinematic feel in some cases and skillfully overwhelmed me in others. There were mayne more instances were she used the interface to great effect.
I loved Blood Machine’s art work. This digital drawing-over-an-existing-painting/photograph-style was really cool.
I’m enthralled by how skillful Snek picks and uses music. The music came from three people composing directly for the game and a range of licenced / CC songs. And they still feel super cohesive and fit each scene so well.
Some closing words for this comment ^_^ : Those girls are neither in a good nor stable place. But, I think LD shows that despite everything life goes on, and it is worth sticking through, because there is tangible hope for things and people to improve.
I was a realatively normie-coded transfemme before this came into my life. Loner Dog//Snuff Puppy Carnage Society is the most intense piece of media I have ever consumed. This VN gives you a gut wound and then sticks its vile, unwashed hand inside your entrails to pop and squeeze them. Several times I had to put down this VN to take a break. Several times I wanted to vomit. Several times I kept coming back for more. This VN changed how I engage with media. This VN changed what media I even want to engage with. This VN spoiled me. Nothing I will ever consume will bring me to where this did. What this VN has done to me I will die with.
There is no proper way to numerically rate something as visceral as this. This will keep you up at night.
Fuck. Me.
LONER_DOG is a masterpiece
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This is some of the most vile shit I have ever read
do NOT take the content warnings lightly, there aren't many pieces of art that are this expressive
stay safe, there always is a way, things will get better and you deserve to live <3
I am deeply touched by your comment and your experience. Thank you for sharing <3
holy fuck im so glad I decided to read this
Allow me to share some assorted thoughts of mine that I've written elsewhere about this fine VN of yours:
Phenomenal, spectacular, and beautiful work from top to bottom and start to finish, heheheh~
This game made me cry like a goddamn bitch, fuck. There were a couple story beats that touched on a lot things I had personally experienced transitioning and the whole thing left me with a lot of dread. It was like gazing into a dark mirror and wondering if I'm destined follow down the same road. I fully recommend this game to any that can stomach it's themes. The rest I want to talk about is spoilers so play the rest of the game first.
___
Haley and Maya's relationship hit way too close to one I'm currently in. I wanted to leave it, but I am terrified she'll kill herself just like Haley did. Haley's death hit me incredibly hard and I actually felt incredible anger with how the body was treated. I've felt similarly inadequate and it hurts when people push away from you.
Argo and Venessa mirrored a lot of gay love that brought joy to my life transitioning. The manic obsession and grocery shopping together are fond memories in my head. I've even struggled similarly with being unable to say no and put down boundaries like with Argo and Noni.
Audrey is the unsung hero and she deserved her crash out mid story.
Thank you for this experience, it's a wonderful work of art.
crying
holy fuck.
i dont even know where to begin with writing this comment
this was one of the most fucked up things i have ever read.
this was also one of the most beautiful and well written things i have ever read. i read the content warnings, and i was super ok with all of that, but fuck. i had ZERO warning that this game was going to make me so emotional.
this is going to stick with me for a very long time and ugh i want to tell every single person i know about this and how good the story is... but this would probably be a little too fucked up to show my current friends :((
i have so many thoughts and questions about the making of this and how you created the world and the (insanely well written) characters and the themes you used and aaaaaa
this is going to stick with me for a very very long time. thank you. im 1000% checking out all your other works after this
hi :3 I'm really glad to hear loner dog impacted you in the way it did <3
If you're curious about the development, you can find a small post archive on my website, or you can also just reach out directly! Just DM me on any of my socials (handy overview on the website too)
also if you want more friends for this type of stuff, I'm running a small discord server! if you reach out to me I can get you on that too :3