With Friends Like These... - Emily Is Away

Hello beautiful people of the Internet! And not so beautiful ones... hehe. It's time for something a little different today! The game that ruins friendships. Literally.

Emily Is Away is a short but sweet free game you can pick up on steam. It's the story of you and a high school friend called Emily, told in the form of brief instant messaging chats from the early 2000's. Complete with faithful representation of the hideous old Windows XP dashboard, sounds and usability (for optimal immersion!).

You know, the fact one of Ren's favourite terrible jokes is in this game is enough to make me quit right now.
(Excessive laughter)

For a game that takes at most thirty minutes to complete it's surprisingly deep and really gets you thinking. Unfortunately it really loses its magic any times after you've beaten it. The gameplay consists solely of choosing an icon at the start of each chapter, and responding to Emily's messages by selecting a multiple choice option and spamming random keys on your keyboard until 'you' have typed out a message to reply with. Playing this game brought on a lot of nostalgia for me, chatting online like in this game was a lot of my time spent online five years ago, and I've known people just like Emily (I feel a lot of us have) in the past. Yeah. Ren never had any real friends. Hey! I had friends shut up!

You would think a game such as this would be boring, it's basically just like talking to one of those chatbot advertisements that pop up while you're on the internet. What? When have there ever been adverts like th- Wait... Didn't those show up from porn websites? A-Anyway! Regardless of that it's a very interesting story that can see you get pretty emotionally attached to Emily in a matter of minutes. Despite only being a part of a single chat for each of the five years the story plays out in, I still felt that I had known her for all that time in-between just from reminiscent messages. Ren was totally in love with her. And Sin had found her best gal-pal... Ow!

You just don't know when to give up do you?
But he sounds like a horrible boyfriend!

It's obvious the game is aimed at a male audience (Or a lesbian audience! Let's be fair here! Sin! Be quiet!). There's a clear romantic subtext between the player and Emily which you can choose to embrace or even shut down altogether. At one point when she asks what you're up to on the weekend, all three different responses lead to you typing 'with my friend Emma'. When she asks who Emma is you can say she's 'A friend', 'Just a girl' or 'A girl I like' depending on how you're feeling. Regardless of what you say, like Sin she doesn't seem happy about it. The very same could be said the other way too. Whenever Emily mentions her on-off boyfriend Brad, the options become something along the lines of 'Stereotypical nice guy', 'it's not like I'm into you or anything style sarcasm' and 'call him a twat'. The last ones are my favourite.

It's great that some of the options are just you being a dick.
Hey what have you got against High School?
......... Ugh.

It's cool that this game gives you so many options for pursuing the story. Do you go after Emily? Try and make it work with Emma instead? Or just be the the biggest bastard a girl could ever meet. Either way who freaking cares! It always goes the same way anyway, both your character and Emily only care about what they want! So Emily ends up with- WAIT! ... What? Spoilers Sin! Spoilers! Oh come on who cares about spoilers for a game they'll beat in half an hour anyway! Emily always ends up with Brad or Travis. You always manage to mess it up with Emma, no matter what you say. And the game always leads to a scenario with the same three options! Goodbye forever. Goodbye forever. and GOODBYE FOREVER!

When I saw those harsh and clearly sarcastic words, I couldn't help but be reminded of a certain someone.
W-What the hell are you looking at me for!?

Sin... Uh... She really cares about her friends... This game had a pretty big effect on her you know? For something so simple, it still draws out emotion, and questions some really deep facts of life. The ultimate message of the story is that things change, people change, situations change, and that's okay, because regardless of the choices you make, everything will work out for the best in the end. That is the beauty of this deep and unique game...

... Pfft. Wow. You got awfully sentimental there didn't you Sin?
S-S-Shut up! I-I'm a sensitive girl you know!
Ow! Ah... Dammit Sin come back! See? This is why I hate people like Emily. Look at all the trouble they cause! Until next time everybody! We love you all!