One year ago today I started this blog with a review of Emily is Away Too, so here’s the next one…
Emily is Away
Developer: Kyle Seeley
Available on: Steam, itch.io
Price: Free
Warning for discussion of dubious consent and rape in this review.
While I prefer Emily is Away‘s spiritual successor, Emily is Away Too, by a long shot, I had to play the game that started it all. It’s much shorter and simpler in terms of what can happen and the features it lacks, like websites and downloads. Still, I found this game to be a much more harrowing experience because, here, no matter what you do, things aren’t going to end well.
With this story taking place over 5 years, from your last year of high school to your last year of college, the timeline has expanded but the experience is condensed when compared to Emily is Away Too. You only speak to one character, Emily, and the usage of the AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) interface doesn’t seem to have a purpose here other than to evoke nostalgia solely based on that. There are virtually no references to the time period except for a few albums and movies mentioned in passing or through the icons you select.
The game, although allowing you to choose your name, is clearly meant to be from the point-of-view of a guy and even worse, a Nice Guy™. His need to control Emily is apparent throughout and it’s disconcerting. It’s so easy to call any man Emily dates a “tool” and say you’d be better for her. You can’t even be genuinely happy for her relationship since all your dialogue options quickly become antagonistic. She tells you her and her boyfriend get into arguments and he can be “a real jerk,” but what does that mean? Initially I was worried it might be revealed he was abusive, but this is never made clear if that is the case.
The writing has improved significantly between this game to the next, where here Emily is one-dimensional and so are you. Who’s Emily? She likes Coldplay and is kinda emo. Who’s the protagonist? He likes Emily and hanging out with friends. What about her boyfriend? You always call him a tool, but is that because you’re looking through Nice Guy™-tinted glasses or because he actually sucks? I’d be hard-pressed to describe anyone’s personality and the NPCs are basically props. Maybe this is a function of the game being so short, but the writing could’ve been much better.
Emily is Away is supposed to be choice-driven, but that is only an illusion. You can speak to Emily with varying tones, but in the end, the story will still go in a similar direction. Your options are limited and some have no real consequence: you can choose what kind of university you go to, whether you go to a senior year high school party, and how you feel about people, but none of that has real, material consequences in the overarching story.
What matters most is the choice you make after Emily breaks up with her boyfriend and is almost inconsolable. You both have had some latent attraction to each other since high school apparently, and in an effort to forget and feel better, she asks to come visit you. You can refuse, agree, or agree but only as friends. While these choices will all result in Emily’s feelings towards you changing to the point where the relationship deteriorates, one has left me unsure.
If you simply say yes and tell her to come visit, she will later tell you she regrets the two of you hooking up, saying it all seemed planned. She says you should’ve realized how vulnerable she was because of the breakup, but now she doesn’t know if things will ever be the same. Unfortunately you, as the player, have no idea what were your character’s motivations and thought processes behind what happened and you don’t get to choose what happened.
I know if it were up to me I never would’ve chosen to do anything like that because it is clear that she’s messed up and only trying to get rid of the negative feelings. She’s feeling wistful and thinks if she sees someone she liked in high school that things will change, and she’ll be happy again. I don’t know the exact nature of what happened as we never get to see it, but it is possible to even bring alcohol into the mix which would only blur the issue of consent even further.
Because some people have read the possible interaction as a rape, Seeley responded to that with this:
You do not rape someone in Emily is Away. . . If you two do hook up she regrets her decision. It was made in haste after she broke up with her past boyfriend and was based off of memories and not real feelings for you. This ruins your friendship and potential relationship. It’s a fly-too-close-to-the-sun scenario. Where hooking-up is what some players want at this point. But then the chapter after they’re faced with the reality that they just went from 0-60 in their relationship with Emily and it seems to have derailed their friendship forever.
Kyle Seeley
Stories are often open to interpretation even if that’s not what the author intended, and while I feel a bit better being told that was not the intent, I still can’t help shake the uncertainty. After all, intent is irrelevant, actions and effects are what matter.
Grunge Gamer 