"Emily is Away Too" is the 2017 sequel to the 2015 sleeper hit "Emily is Away". I use the term sleeper hit because, though the game was free, it managed to attract a significant amount of notoriety (and consequently downloads) to warrant it being distinguishable from its crowd of free/low-budget indie titles.

And low-budget it was. "Emily is Away" remains a great example of how to use small development money wisely. Creator Kyle Seeley chose to cash his chips on the nostalgia vibe of old-school AOL chat services that dominated the beginning of the Internet in the late-90s/early-2000s. This hit a stride with a lot of people, prompting it to gain free marketing.

Having played "Emily is Away," I can say that I liked it overall, but had some big reservations. You can read my full review here (https://steamcommunity.com/id/redtotalwar/recommended/417860?snr=1_5_9__402), but, to talk about the good, Seeley successfully created a product that would appeal to anyone who grew up in the targeted demographic: though I personally had not used AIM, I found myself enjoying the visuals and sounds because they were terrific reconstructions of the aesthetic/audio seen in the days of Windows Vista (my parents were ardent computer users, as was myself back then and still now). And the story, while simple, managed to be engaging.

To talk about the bad though, the nostalgia aspect meant that its appeal might not reach those who weren't in said demographic. On top of this, the narrative had issues: I didn't like being forced into a romantic relationship, the timeskips between the chapters were unrealistic for two friends in contact, there was no option for touch typing, it was geared towards male/lesbian gamers only, and there was only one ending (technically 2, but its result was more-or-less the same).

Despite these myriad of issues, I didn't want to criticize the game too heavily. After all, Seeley had chosen to release it for free, and you weren't going to lose more than an hour of your time clicking through it. Combine these aspects with a genuine charm and you had a recommendation.

"Emily is Away Too," comes with a $5.00 asking price, meaning I don’t feel as guilty critiquing it compared to its predecessor. Seeley had every right as a developer and publisher to do this as the two years between the two have provided him an opportunity to completely redesign the systems. “Emily is Away Too” has the same basic premise of using an IM to communicate with friends, but that service itself has been retrofitted with a new layout, more ergonomic features (the ability to swap between chats), and the incorporation of hyperlinks that act as either external URLs or download links to your desktop.

Those external URLs go to two fake websites representing the early onset of YouTube (YouToob) and Facebook (Facenook), but it is here that we get to the biggest issue with “Emily is Away Too” which is spectacle creep.

Spectacle creep is a potential problem with sequelitis wherein a creator decides that the best way to create a better sequel is to go bigger: bigger scope + bigger visuals = bigger rewards. Sometimes this works (Terminator 2, Aliens, The Dark Knight, Assassin’s Creed II), but most of the time it falters because, in conceiving a larger framework, the creators lose sight of what made the original special.

Such is the case with “Emily is Away Too.” Seeley evidently decided that he had to expand upon what he had built, but his reach has exceeded his grasp. The story has been moved from the early-2000s to the mid-2000s; topics have been broadened beyond loss of friendships to matters like abusive romances, losing one’s virginity, drug use, and post-collegiate plans; you interact with two females over one, and you have the option to check out the aforestated sites. The problem is, none of these are developed well to the point where they can either stand on their own or add something to the conversation.

“Emily is Away” worked because it focused on one specific thing: the diminishing of a close relationship through the awkwardness of early-IM chatrooms. Even if you hadn’t personally experienced such an event that way, a lot of people could relate to this because they’ve either lost contact with former friends, had communication issues via social media, or seen others/themselves change for better and for worse. Seeley didn’t use the late-90s era to limit his thematic or storytelling ambit: it was simply a structure for the aesthetic and common problems surrounding said aesthetic.

In “Emily is Away Too,” we’re now in 2006 and what has happened? Characters are constantly bragging and sharing links about relevant music genres (alternative, punk rock) and memes (Numa Numa, Rickrolling); Facenook has opened up the possibility of poking, posting dumb status updates, and taking personality tests, no one seems to care about the future, and everyone feels the need to speak in slang, typos, and pop culture.

I noted above that the timely aspect of the first EiA might hurt its appeal despite its relatable themes. With EiAT, I know for sure the timely aspect will hurt its appeal because of how drenched in the mid-2000s it is. Seeley has gone from simply taking an existing framework to trying desperately to recreate it, and I don’t even know how successful he was. With language, for example, I don’t recall us ever speaking in such blatant slang and having such terrible typos. Seriously, in “Too”, the sheer amount of typos you or your partners post is ridiculous, and even though I learned touch typing at a young age, I don’t remember non-touch typers ever being this bad at it. Likewise with the slang: did we really say “awesomesauce” or “deuce” that often? And did we REALLY make a pop culture or music reference every other sentence?

Experiences and memories will always be subjective, but this feels more like a caricature of what a 90s-born millennial would say than what we actually said back in the day.

With the broadened topics, I did find this more naturalistic because the fact is, with the Internet, we became more curious. And because we were too bashful to talk with our parents about these sensitive topics, we went to our peers. It indulged two feelings: we got a sense of excitement from discussing something taboo behind our folks’ backs, and we got satisfaction from getting “answers” to our questions. What drugs felt like, when we planned to lose our virginity, plans for moving out of our parents’ homes (before the Recession ruined that!). Though the scripting could have been more refined and less like “Superbad” I think it was the best part of the game.

The ability to check out Facenook and YouToob seems great on paper, but it falls apart upon closer examination as none of them are designed well. They look good from an artistic sense, clearly resembling the original set-ups of their real-world counterparts, but that loses its appeal after a few minutes and the realization that you can’t do anything. Facenook only allows you to view the front page of other user profiles, poke them, and send friend requests. You don’t get to create your own profile, post your own status updates, receive pokes, acknowledge friend requests, do anything resembling social media, or even interact with anyone on the medium. I genuinely wonder why Seeley had the game take place on a separate chat service when he could have used the old-school Facebook PMing system: it would’ve allowed him to not divide his time between two different applications, and focus exclusively on recreating the problems that came with early social media.

YouToob isn’t much better. You can watch videos and click on related videos that are displayed on the side (which are all of the era and don’t feel anachronistic). There are two issues though: you can’t create your own account, thus preventing you from commenting or creating a playlist of your own, and two, Seeley did a poor job embedding the videos. They go directly to videos published on YouTube, which ruins the immersion b/c you can clearly see the new YouTube format on the videos (or in some cases, an anachronistic feature like Vevo, which didn’t launch until late 2009) or sometimes not see the video at all! (it having been removed by the channel that Seeley linked to).

There are some meme sites that users post on their AIM page, but these lose their comedic value quickly.

Then there’s the story, which isn’t good at all. Having to deal with two girls seems like a unique spin that would expand upon the nature of the first game, but it doesn’t. The two girls, Emily and Evelyn, are basically carbon copies of one another who both conveniently have relationship issues that you, the White Knight, can step in and solve. Things do get interesting in the second chapter when you have to balance talking with the two: a time meter forces you to rush, mimicking the real-life process of having to balance multiple chats with a potentially impatient person. I really loved this, especially when it caused me to lose one of the girls b/c she was upset I wasn’t responding to her problems fast enough.

ONLY, it turns out this was scripted! You’re SUPPOSED to lose one of the girls, leaving you to focus entirely on the other chick. The forced linearity gets really annoying here, and while EiA also had it, it was much shorter in the dialogue. Here, conversations go on and on, really making it resemble a visual novel. And this would be fine if the scripting was good, but it's clear that Seeley needed to bring on some female writers as the amount of repetitive, desperate dialogue uttered by the girls is borderline disturbing and over-the-border irate. Having to repeat the same thing over and over again got annoying fast.

There is still no option for touch typers, and while you do have a platonic option, it's literally 1 out of 3 choices, the other 2 being heavily insisted upon by the game.

It took me less than 2 hours to beat Emily is Away Too, which makes it fall under my $1: 30 minutes ratio. Yes, there are multiple endings this time around, but they involve two different versions of the same ending (changed for the respective girl) and are initiated by the forced linearity of the aforestated chapter. Combined with the mediocre dialogue, half-baked attempts at replicating mid-2000s culture, and loss of charm from the first and you have a game I can’t recommend.

Emily is Away Too went big and fell short of almost everything it set out to do. I did like the topics it talked about, but even these were handled more like a Hollywood movie and the lack of awkwardness that comes with said watered-down product. Nostalgia cannot be a vanity project, yet that’s exactly what Seeley did here.