Emily Is Away Review

<p><em>Emily Is Away<&sol;em> first captured me with its simplicity&period; In essence&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s a visual novel with multiple branching paths&period; You play the role of a man who has become detached with his best friend after high school&period; You&&num;8217&semi;re both in different colleges and your character has a deep attachment for Emily&comma; the titular character&period; This journey throughout the five years after high school is a roller coaster ride and even with just text&comma; this game made me feel all kinds of emotions&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><img class&equals;"alignright size-full wp-image-113374" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;03&sol;20161844&sol;emily-is-away-review-text-message&period;gif" alt&equals;"emily-is-away-review-text-message" width&equals;"720" height&equals;"540" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Emily Is Away<&sol;em> is simple in nature&period; You choose what you want to say back to Emily&comma; and then the character types in as you pretend to type&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s a cool concept&comma; and without spoiling anything&comma; the game makes a twist on the formula which really illustrates the awkward nature of typing in messages to people you admire&period; As she responds&comma; 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&period; Your decisions&comma; however&comma; can deeply affect what happens at the end&period; Like Telltale Games&&num;8217&semi; projects&comma; <em>Emily Is Away<&sol;em> also has a feature which displays what she&&num;8217&semi;ll remember in the future and what path you have chosen&period; You immediately think&comma; &&num;8220&semi;Oh no&comma; what have I done&excl;&quest;&&num;8221&semi; when the message comes on screen&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>What is also deeply effective is the fact that there is no music&semi; it&&num;8217&semi;s mostly the sound of tapping on a keyboard and the nostalgic sound effects from Windows&&num;8217&semi; operating system and AOL&&num;8217&semi;s messenger&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s wonderful&period; You can also hear things happening in the background&comma; which really immerse you into the visual novel&period; What also makes the world come to life more is that there are icons that you can place as your profile picture&period; At first&comma; I chose the HP logo &lpar;<em>Harry Potter<&sol;em>&rpar;&comma; and then Emily referred to it&period; I&&num;8217&semi;m not sure if she refers to other pictures too&comma; but that was a cool element&period; She also reacts to the colors you use with messages&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><img class&equals;"alignright size-full wp-image-113375" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;03&sol;20161942&sol;emily-is-away-review-bagogames-3&period;png" alt&equals;"emily-is-away-review-bagogames-3" width&equals;"778" height&equals;"674" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>While the writing is comprised of short lines&comma; the story is well presented&period; When you see on the screen that Emily is typing back a message&comma; you immediately feel nervous&period; It perfectly replicates that feeling when you want to know what the other person is thinking&period; The timing of when the message is displayed is well done too&period; It feels natural&period; At stressful moments of the discussion&comma; she takes longer with sending back messages&period; She constantly switches back and forth between writing a message and then rethinking it&comma; and you know by the notification showing up below the chat box&period; Your friends&&num;8217&semi; profiles are also shown on the buddy list too&comma; which gives more of a background on the story&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In addition&comma; <em>Emily Is Away&&num;8217&semi;s <&sol;em>ending is very effective in what it is trying to say&period; I can&&num;8217&semi;t explain it as it would be a spoiler&comma; but it perfectly captures what it feels like to be with friends being at two different places with time passing by&period; There are multiple ways of going through the narrative&comma; but for me&comma; I want to stick with one playthrough&comma; so I can&&num;8217&semi;t say for sure if it has multiple endings or not&period; According to this <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;kindafunnyforums&period;com&sol;viewtopic&period;php&quest;t&equals;5166" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener noreferrer">Kinda Funny forum<&sol;a> &lpar;SPOILERS&rpar;&comma; there is one ending&comma; but there are multiple ways of reaching it&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>What seemed to be a simple visual novel turned into a thought provoking piece about friendship and separation&comma; and that&&num;8217&semi;s just with text and a few sound effects&period; <em>Emily Is Away<&sol;em> is free on Steam&comma; and you can choose to donate if you would like&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s 30 minutes to an hour that truly hooked me&comma; and it&&num;8217&semi;s a narrative that you have to check out&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;