Emily Is Away first captured me with its simplicity. In essence, it’s a visual novel with multiple branching paths. You play the role of a man who has become detached with his best friend after high school. You’re both in different colleges and your character has a deep attachment for Emily, the titular character. This journey throughout the five years after high school is a roller coaster ride and even with just text, this game made me feel all kinds of emotions.
Emily Is Away is simple in nature. You choose what you want to say back to Emily, and then the character types in as you pretend to type. It’s a cool concept, and without spoiling anything, the game makes a twist on the formula which really illustrates the awkward nature of typing in messages to people you admire. As she responds, you try to tactically decide what to say next to make her feel better about her life and perhaps try to make the character get together with Emily. Your decisions, however, can deeply affect what happens at the end. Like Telltale Games’ projects, Emily Is Away also has a feature which displays what she’ll remember in the future and what path you have chosen. You immediately think, “Oh no, what have I done!?” when the message comes on screen.
What is also deeply effective is the fact that there is no music; it’s mostly the sound of tapping on a keyboard and the nostalgic sound effects from Windows’ operating system and AOL’s messenger. It’s wonderful. You can also hear things happening in the background, which really immerse you into the visual novel. What also makes the world come to life more is that there are icons that you can place as your profile picture. At first, I chose the HP logo (Harry Potter), and then Emily referred to it. I’m not sure if she refers to other pictures too, but that was a cool element. She also reacts to the colors you use with messages.
While the writing is comprised of short lines, the story is well presented. When you see on the screen that Emily is typing back a message, you immediately feel nervous. It perfectly replicates that feeling when you want to know what the other person is thinking. The timing of when the message is displayed is well done too. It feels natural. At stressful moments of the discussion, she takes longer with sending back messages. She constantly switches back and forth between writing a message and then rethinking it, and you know by the notification showing up below the chat box. Your friends’ profiles are also shown on the buddy list too, which gives more of a background on the story.
In addition, Emily Is Away’s ending is very effective in what it is trying to say. I can’t explain it as it would be a spoiler, but it perfectly captures what it feels like to be with friends being at two different places with time passing by. There are multiple ways of going through the narrative, but for me, I want to stick with one playthrough, so I can’t say for sure if it has multiple endings or not. According to this Kinda Funny forum (SPOILERS), there is one ending, but there are multiple ways of reaching it.
What seemed to be a simple visual novel turned into a thought provoking piece about friendship and separation, and that’s just with text and a few sound effects. Emily Is Away is free on Steam, and you can choose to donate if you would like. It’s 30 minutes to an hour that truly hooked me, and it’s a narrative that you have to check out.
Emily Is Away
Free
Pros
- Thought provoking story
- Cool way of delivering a narrative
- The immaculate replication of the messenger and computer systems of old
- Effective ending
