Emily is Away

I keep telling myself i shouldn't feel bad because the story is made so that almost anyone can relate to it... but then i realize the last part is so sad ;_;
Oh well, at least we get to enjoy the memes.

Notice: This review is based on my personal experience, which is very similar to the story of the game. Call it a semi-spoiler. With that said, those with intentions of playing the game without being spoiled, please look elsewhere.


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I used to have a lot of friends back in high school. And there was this one person with whom I never spoke too much. After graduation, she left for the US. We were able to get in contact with each other through social media, though. I think I struck a conversation with her first, and that's when our friendship started to blossom.

A few days in, we start to talk about almost everything, being all nice to each other and stuff. We speak about what school was like. Just sharing memories.

A few weeks in, mid-2012, and we talk to each other non-stop. We tend to stay up late for each other. Sometimes, we'd ask each other stupid questions just to keep the conversation going, because it was fun.

A few months in, end of 2012 to early 2013, and we have practically found solace in each other, and talk to get away from things. We share info on our problems. We complain to each other. We debate on things. And there are many times when she felt like she wanted to come back here to meet everyone again. This was the closest I've been with a person online.

It's about mid-2014, and we've run out of things to talk about. She talks about how she doesn't feel too alone anymore. and how she's making new friends now and then. And I say that I'm really happy for her. She sells cupcakes, and goes out with her friends once a while.

It's 2015 ... I send her a sort of petition to sign, but it was just a desperate attempt to try to resuscitate our excessively engaging conversations again. It didn't work, ended up talking about college again. It felt like talking to her the first time all over again.

2017... and counting ... I haven't spoken to her since then ... and it doesn't feel like we're friends anymore.

Although I am a stranger to the nostalgic visualization that the game represents to those who are familiar with AOL Instant Messaging (as I have clearly never used it), Emily is Away nails this emotional aspect of my life so hard, it made me think of the times when I actually had a lot of fun talking to my friend. The fact that I can't have that back again makes it all the more hurtful. And all the more reason to give it a try, so you could appreciate what you had while it lasted.

This game, in short, is a reminder that all good things will always come to an end. And I feel fucking horrible about it.

Fun, free game. Very short, but it has a nice enough story, and the choices seem meaningful so long as you don't replay it too many times.

Rose: what a goddamn
Rose: fucking
Rose: bullshit
Rose: fucking game
Rose: fucking nigger faggot shit I type a goddamn choice
Rose: everytime its the right fucking chocie
Rose: a choice that would make progress
Rose: and it backspaces
Rose: everything I fuckign say
Rose: and changes it to soemthing
Rose: that results in getting
Rose: cucked
Rose: ffs
Rose: that's gonna be my review for this shit
Rose: too

( S P O L I E R S ) ( S P O L I E R S ) ( S P O L I E R S ) ( S P O L I E R S ) ( S P O L I E R S ) ( S P O L I E R S )
Great story line, great romance, the best interface, great experience overall. Just make a ending where you get the girl and then it will help. <3

The game is about you having a crush on a girl from your high school and chatting with her.

The game puts you in 3 years of the character's life where he chats with his crush Emily.

It's kind of fun. You say something, then she replies, then you have to reply and it goes on.
Each time you have to reply, you will have three choices of what to say. So you have a few options and it won't be like watching a premade tv show.

Picking what to say is not all you have to do. You have to type it too. Well, not quite by yourself. There is a premade sentence for each choice. When you start hitting your keyboard buttons and try to type something, the letters began to be placed one by one. So you can either try to guess what your reply choice will say and try to type that, or simply just spam one button until the sentence is complete. Whichever type you are.

It's kinda fun but also saddening and stuff. Just like a real crush. If you don't want to go through the pain of having a crush on someone, don't play this. If you do want to, then play it. It only took me 0.9 hours to finish it (I started button spamming in the second half of the game). 0.9 hours isn't very much so you won't lose anything. Specially since it's free to play.

If you're a guy, you can play this. If you're a girl, I don't see the point. If you're a lesbian girl, yeah play and have fun.
If you're a shemale, well then I'll be confused to advise whether to play or not so it's up to you. Heheh, just kidding.


I'd give the game 7/10 I think. Made me relive some bad memories of when I had a crush on a girl and f**k did that hurt!



---Spoiler---Read at your own risk---
No matter what choices you make, how you behave and what personality you will have, you will end up with one ending. I tried it myself.

this game easy game was made to kill time simply click on the clave I advise those who do not want to take the long game
extract achievements easy

this was a nice trip down memory lane of living through the early 2000s when everyone was on AIM and myspace. simpler days when away messages were an outlet of creativity and emotion. as a game though, it's not much fun. i played twice thinking the outcome would change with different responses; it doesn't. the entire premise of the game is just instant messaging. there's a reason this game is free to play, i wouldn't have paid even $1 for this. you're not missing out on anything if you don't play this and honestly i feel like i wasted an hour of my life. not entirely sure how this game won any awards/received any praise.

The story wasn't very well done, and It always ends the same poor way. It's a incredibly short "story" that leaves you with an empty feeling at the end, and when I say empty I mean more like pointless.

However it took me on quite a nostalgia trip. If you used to chat with your buddies using AOL instant messanger on Windows XP like I did years back than you should give it a shot. it's pretty unique how well it made it feel like the early 2000s. The whole game is played on a simulated computer using an AOL instant messanger clone to talk to your friend, it even has the drama and stupid "situations"that being a teenager comes with. Felt pretty close to how I remember it feeling like back when.

It has value in my eyes despite it being a faliure. If you're around my age than I reccomend putting giving it a quick playthrough (20-30min), jumping a couple years in the past for 30min itsn't so bad. Hell, If it was any longer I would be pulling my hair out.

The game tries to invest the player emotionally through the sole use of internet chat messages. While commendable, the lack of control over the conversations and context left me uninterested in the titular character, which is not introduced in any way and whose personality can be quite grating, which was unfortunate, as you as the player are supposed to want to end up with her. Since I did indeed drift apart, I consider I got a happy ending.

Throughout the course of the game the player is given the option of changing his/her avatars in tandem with whatever was popular at the time. Their friends also show progression by choosing new icons, biographies, and away messages.

In the protagonists' senior year of high school in 2002, they use a chat client to talk with "emilyluv", "emerly", or Emily. They discuss high school and a fellow student, Brad, who keeps sending Emily messages. They also talk about a party that a classmate Travis is throwing that evening, which they may or may not go to, depending on player choices. Then they say goodbye as Emily logs off.

In their first year of college (2003), the player talks to Emily again, who has gotten together with Brad or Travis (depending on if the player chose to go to the party or not), though she hints that the relationship has become rocky. The character congratulates her, and shifts to other questions, such as their classes. They say goodbye, as Emily yet again logs off.

In their second year of college (2004), the player learns that Emily has broken up with Brad/Travis, explained by Emily as "growing apart", and the character is given the option of consoling her. At this point, Emily either asks why they didn't come to Travis's party in 2002 or why they didn't kiss her if they did attend, depending on the player choices. They both wonder what could have been, and Emily immediately asks if she can come to visit. Most of the time, they will agree for Emily to come, and the player will subsequently cancel their plans with Emma, a friend of the player. The player, alternatively can choose to not allow Emily to come. Emily signs off.

In their third year of college (2005), the player again talks to Emily, who wants to talk things over about her previous visit. If the character doesn't set boundaries and Emily visits, it turns out that Emily and the character ended up hooking up, and Emily feels like she was taken advantage of when she was vulnerable. If the character does set boundaries and they don't hook up, Emily asks if the character had feelings for her when she visited and why they didn't make a move. Alternatively, if you choose to not let Emily visit, she will ask you about your new friends. The conversation is awkward and distant, with Emily eventually leaving due to her discomfort, feeling too weird to continue.

In their final year of college (2006), Emily and the character have clearly grown apart. Emily comments how her life is better now; she started dating Brad/Travis again and is involved in other things. The player themselves have lost their friend Emma, in some cases because of Emily. As the conversation comes to an uncomfortable and cold finish, the character begins to revise sentences asking if the two will ever be the same - deleting earnest questions and asking about the weather or other mundane affairs instead. Despite the protagonist's obvious feelings for Emily, she obviously no longer cares, and as a result, they say goodbye. For the first time, the player character is the one who leaves the conversation, logging off.

It's a very good game, I like the nostalgic background, everything makes the game more immersive.
It's very short, but I think that is perfect like that (if it was longer it could lose the spirit).
I played it 3 times in a row (hoping that it could have different endings, but it disapponted me a little) and I spent the rest of the time unlocking all the buddy icons watching only the images from google (I know that there is an ScreenName that unlocks everything, but it deprive of a little challenge of the game).

I heard that there will be a sequel and I can't wait to play it!
Goodbye.

Wow - A real gem of a conversation game. Chatting on a messenger client to a girl you’ve known since High-school through college/university (depending on your side of the Atlantic) and seeing the relationship develop……..or not. On paper this wouldn’t have grabbed my attention but so glad I read a good magazine review that lead me to it.
One quick play-through and it really resonated with me. I loved the presentation including the background sound of the ‘PC’ running; thought for a minute my drives were getting noisy. A rare game, to evoke such a realistic retro feel in terms of my life and as a ‘game’.

Be warned, if you’re not a bit soppy and romantic this may not be your thing. I also can’t comment on replayability or different endings yet; though I certainly intend on a few more play-throughs.

"Oh My God, I'm a Jerk" Simulator 2015.

Ironic, I suppose, that the gameplay is built around a nostalgic recreation of online communication, but it only really allows poor communication. Maybe this is an intentional commentary on how terrible teenagers are at things like emotional honesty. Maybe they are simply doomed to screw it up.

I can respect an interactive story that sacrifices player agency to preserve an intended message. The game is an artistic expression; I'd say the creator's message is of utmost importance. The delivery, however, feels frustratingly heavy-handed.

I'm not unhappy because the scenario is "unwinnable" (indeed, the attitude that it should be "winnable" is problematic). Rather, I'm annoyed because I made choices thinking they were honest, straightforward, and kind ones, and the player character still ended up hurting Emily. Sure, that happens in real life, too - but here it felt like I selected something innocuous and the player character went off and did something stupid off-screen, beyond my control. This only served to alienate me from them.

But let's not forget that Emily is supposed to be her own person, with her own take on things. Let's not neglect to give her character agency just because she's the NPC. If she were a real person, we would respect her right to be upset, or dissatisfied, or uncertain of what she wanted, right? We would respect her right to change her mind, wouldn't we?

Wouldn't we?

I'm recommending this game because it's free -- if it were a paid game, the review would be different. But as it's free, I'd definitely give it a quick go, just to experience the story once through.

That being said, this is a story game that can truly only be experienced once. After that, you'll find yourself hating not only Emily, but also the game (I'm sorry, devs).

I recognize that at 1.5 hours, I haven't finished the "full game" -- but I have completed the story of the game three different times. As someone who loves player-choice games, I thought this game would be perfect for me.

Alas, such is not the case.

Emily is Away is a player-choice, button pressing game. Your interaction with Emily changes depending on what you choose, and the gimmick works and is good -- I enjoyed it tremendously and it deeply reminded me of my AIM life. You can play as whomever you want, as your character's gender is never even mentioned, and I appreciated that as well.

What I didn't appreciate was the identical dialogue and the "losing" in the game.

Let me explain.

There never is a positive outcome of the game at all. Ever. Not only that, but the majority of the "you lose" dialogue cycles -- so you don't even get to hear how much you screwed up in an interesting way.

Every option ever directs you to another failure. If you hang out with her, she's mad. If you asked to be her friend, she's mad. If you don't hang out with her, she's mad. There's no way to win, making this game one with no replay value and... kind of just depressing and heartbreaking. There's no way to win. I understand things happen eventually, and sometimes there's no way to win, but at times, it feels like she's just mad at your choices for no other reason than for you, as a player, to no longer be her friend. That's it. Completely out of your control. It's ridiculous.

That being said, I guess it's worth a single playthrough. But no more.

Games succeed when they make you feel that YOU screwed up, and that's why the outcome is bad.

Games fail when they make you feel that there is no right way to play, and the outcome is bad because the writers and devs hate you.

Unfortunately, this game falls into the latter category.

After this game coming up near constantly every time I searched for a new game, i decided to give it a try.

It seriously feels like an actual relationship. It did a good job of evoking emotion. Pleasantly surprised by it.

For a free nostalgia game going back to the days of AOL Online, MSN Messenger and others it is pretty decent. There are a few different decisions that you can make that have some different outcomes as you go through the game. Worth a go if you grew up using an online messaging program of the early 2000s.

Love the RPG/FPS elements, really love the fluent combat as well.... No but actually I did really enjoy this game it's good for like a 30 minute to 1 hour time waster and is a cool and pretty interesting story (Even though it's a tad generic). My only draw back for the game was that sadly their wasn't another ending. I defifnitely recommend it, especially if you want a cool nostalgic experience or just a a time waster for an hour. And it's also free to play, so I would defitely try it out.

Not sure if it was just my PC or the actual game, but the cursor appeared about an inch to the left of where it actually was, which made the selecting of anything difficult.

Regarding story - extremely anticlimactic, and very similar to the app on google play called Seen, only with much less to it.

Was a good way to pass 30 minutes though!

Spend 40 minutes to collect all achievments :D But i dont like Emilly after all that.
Collectin John Ceena Ahcievment make me really funny :D

Good game 4fun :) Try it

EMILY IS AWAY ENDINGS

• Best Ending: goodbye.
  
• Good Ending: goodbye.
  
• Bad Ending: goodbye.
  
[*] Worst Ending: goodbye.