07 - Emily is Away

I haven't beaten a game in a while, huh? Man, that kinda shoot's my blog's point right in the foot. 

Anywho.

I think part of the reason people are so nostalgic lately is because they want to go back to a time where they understood less, and when the potential of something was exciting. People are fawning over the 90's because they either didn't give a shit about politics back then or because they like those politics a hell of a lot more than they do now. They think movies back then were better because studios couldn't just rely on cgi, and every song was a banger because in third grade there's not a lot to do after getting into your tv-less bedroom and listen to the radio and learn every word to every song played on B97.1 FM's Top 5 @ 9, which is why Third Eye Blind is the greatest band of the 90's: they were banger city. 

I don't think most people missed 1999 because of something consequential happening in 1999. I think they miss it because of how they felt in 1999. Nobody ever misses the thing - they just miss the way that thing made them feel. 

Emily is Away definitely plays up this nostalgia tailspin our generation finds itself in, and to be honest - I'm all for it. Emily is Away is a choose your own adventure (can you tell I definitely like two types of games yet?) that takes place entirely in a reconstruction of AOL's (formerly) iconic chat messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, or AIM for people over the age of 40 or under the age of 22 (two huge demos for my blog). 

It's not so much a game as much as it's a time machine. The game is lovingly recreating a very specific time and a very specific place. It does its best to recreate the experience authentically, letting you choose a then-relevant buddy-icon, and before too long, titular Emily logs in and you get to chat with her. The sound of someone logging in... I don't know how I forgot about it. 

There are a couple of canned responses you can shoot her, and after selecting one you're left with a blank chat-field. Typing any key on your keyboard triggers the sounds of a mechanical keyboard typing in a more conversational/human version of what you selected to type to her. It's your senior year of high school and there's a party you're not sure about going to. But Emily is going. 

Well... did you go, or not?

The game branches depending on responses, and those responses inform what you and Emily will talk about the next time she logs on. Essentially, you're chatting with her once a year throughout college and your last conversation influence the relationship you have with her. Yes you can hook up with her. Yes you can choose not to. The world is kind of your oyster in that regard, but it feels less like a branching story, and more like a river that splits into smaller creeks before reforming downstream and feeding into a single tributary. In the beginning, The game's alphabet always starts with A and ends with Z, but it's more or less up to you how the other 24 letters are arranged. 

The ending is a bit frustrating because of that seemingly singular destination, but it's never about that - it's about the journey, right? As frustrating (y'know, relatively) the ending is, the actual trek there was a nostalgic dunking that reminded about things I'd forgotten. The iconic sounds, the rush you feel when someone you're crushing logs on, choosing just the right lyrics to go into your profile - while the story was frustrating, being transported back to 2003 most certainly was not, and to the games credit - the story is impactful regardless of what ending you choose, and the game itself is short enough where going back to see how else things could've possibly panned out never feels like a waste of time, but rather an exercise in reflection. Reflecting on the times that were, the person you were, and maybe the person you should've been. 

A phenomenal goddamn game, that you'd do well to spend some time with. And I'm 98% sure it's free on Steam, so please give it a shot and tell me the last lyrics you remember assigning to an IM service. 

MSN Instant Messenger circa 2007, courtesy of Modest Mouse: Went to the porch to have a thought, got to the door and again I couldn't stop. 

I was hashtag deep. What was yours? Were you also hashtag deep?

Lol, just kidding, I know no one reads this shit.