Emily is Away

Emily is Away is a 2015 interactive fiction game by Kyle Seeley that recreates the experience of chatting with someone through an early-2000s instant messaging client. The story unfolds almost entirely through conversations, choices, profile updates, and the painfully familiar rituals of online friendship. What initially looks like a nostalgic trip back to the days of away messages and carefully selected screen names gradually becomes a surprisingly thoughtful exploration of relationships and growing apart. The deliberately authentic interface does much of the storytelling, and anyone who remembers AIM-era internet culture may experience sudden flashbacks. It is charming, awkward, funny, and occasionally uncomfortable in exactly the way real conversations can be.