Emily is Away
Moderate overall intensityWhat's in it
The story carries emotional weight around drifting apart, regret, and one character later saying she felt taken advantage of while vulnerable.
High-school and college parties and drinking are mentioned in the chat conversations, but never shown on screen.
One branch has the two characters hook up during a visit; the encounter is only implied and discussed afterward in text, never shown.
Casual instant-messenger dialogue between teenagers and college students may include occasional mild profanity.
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What it is
Emily is Away is a free, single-player interactive story presented entirely through a recreated early-2000s instant-messenger window styled after AIM. You pick a screenname and type replies through five yearly conversations with a friend named Emily, from high school into college, choosing dialogue options that branch the relationship toward different endings. There is no action, combat, or explore-able world—only clicking and typing through chats. The mature content is light and text-only: casual mentions of parties and drinking, occasional mild swearing, and, on some paths, a reference to the two characters hooking up that is described briefly in text rather than shown. The emotional tone grows melancholy, dealing with growing apart, regret, and one character saying she felt taken advantage of while she was vulnerable.
How it's framed
The game frames its content through the lens of quiet, realistic nostalgia and the ache of a friendship or romance that slowly fades. It presents drinking, parties, and the hookup as ordinary parts of teenage and college life rather than dramatizing or sensationalizing them, and it lets outcomes—including hurt and misunderstanding—arise from the player's choices without commentary or judgment.
Details
- Developer
- Kyle Seeley
- Publisher
- Kyle Seeley
- Released
- Nov 20, 2015
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