COMPLETE: Emily is Away
Jan. 21st, 2018 03:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kjorteoHelp, why do I have so many "this looked neat and short and was free" games
*ahem* I mean
Emily is Away is an... interactive... story, I guess? Set in the framing of old AIM chats. The answers are strictly multiple choice, but then the game makes you input text just to match your keystrokes with the answer that appears, so you end up asdfasdfawerawdfasdfaserqwetdfgasfads-ing your way through most of it. They could have made that slightly less obnoxious, I suppose, but it does capture an authentic feeling so I don't know.
It's basically a short sad story told through one IM conversation per year with your friend Emily, as you go through the last year of high school and four years of college. You two hook up and break up with various friends and possibly each other, depending on your choices.
I ended up walking away from this feeling like I messed up, like we got together and then drifted back apart and now things are kind of weird and awkward between us. I even felt a bit of a pang of "oof" when she idly mentioned she'd gotten back together with her old boyfriend. I mean, being dumped by a fictional game character I'd known for all of ten minutes wasn't as bad as the real thing, of course, but... still, ouch.
(Do not look at the community hub for this game, by the way. I went to the guides to see if there was any way things could have ended better. The answer is: Not really. Unfortunately, that led to the hub being taken over by fuckboys who decided that the appropriate reaction to this would be to flood the Guides section with over a hundred walkthroughs to the effect of "How to get the best ending: Step 1: Turn off the game" and "Top ten reasons why Emily is a bitch lolololol" and such.)
So, in the end, this is an unavoidable downer of a game. I probably would not have played it had I known that going in. I'm kind of glad I played it anyway, though? I mean, yeah, it's... oof, but that means the writing/characters/presentation of this game was effective. This game made me feel things, so it has to be considered a success.
*ahem* I mean
Emily is Away is an... interactive... story, I guess? Set in the framing of old AIM chats. The answers are strictly multiple choice, but then the game makes you input text just to match your keystrokes with the answer that appears, so you end up asdfasdfawerawdfasdfaserqwetdfgasfads-ing your way through most of it. They could have made that slightly less obnoxious, I suppose, but it does capture an authentic feeling so I don't know.
It's basically a short sad story told through one IM conversation per year with your friend Emily, as you go through the last year of high school and four years of college. You two hook up and break up with various friends and possibly each other, depending on your choices.
I ended up walking away from this feeling like I messed up, like we got together and then drifted back apart and now things are kind of weird and awkward between us. I even felt a bit of a pang of "oof" when she idly mentioned she'd gotten back together with her old boyfriend. I mean, being dumped by a fictional game character I'd known for all of ten minutes wasn't as bad as the real thing, of course, but... still, ouch.
(Do not look at the community hub for this game, by the way. I went to the guides to see if there was any way things could have ended better. The answer is: Not really. Unfortunately, that led to the hub being taken over by fuckboys who decided that the appropriate reaction to this would be to flood the Guides section with over a hundred walkthroughs to the effect of "How to get the best ending: Step 1: Turn off the game" and "Top ten reasons why Emily is a bitch lolololol" and such.)
So, in the end, this is an unavoidable downer of a game. I probably would not have played it had I known that going in. I'm kind of glad I played it anyway, though? I mean, yeah, it's... oof, but that means the writing/characters/presentation of this game was effective. This game made me feel things, so it has to be considered a success.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-21 11:03 pm (UTC)HI WELCOME TO MY FRIENDS LIST
...also for something of an antidote to that feeling, maybe try Digital: A Love Story.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-21 11:07 pm (UTC)I WILL NEVER ESCAPE FROM THIS PIT