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Emy Discovers Life Reviews
Author: Mkj
Date: 1998
AGT
What does AIF stand for? Adult Interactive Fiction.
If you likely to
be offended by games with sexual content, you are advised not
to open these
files.
Reviewed by A. Bomire
Basic Plot
This game tells the story of a 15-year old school girl in 1950's England (the
title character, Emy) struggling with the changes of growing up, and the
hormonal urges that accompany those changes. As with most girls her age, Emy is
just discovering the feelings engendered by her neighbor-cum-boyfriend, Sam. At
the same time, she is discovering her own body along with her best friend, Jen.
As if this wasn't enough to deal with, she is also consumed by guilt over these
feelings. Her struggles to resolve these feelings guide the main storyline of
this game.
Overall Thoughts
When choosing a game to be reviewed this month, I was astonished to learn that
this game had not as yet been reviewed. Or, at least had not been reviewed by a
member of the AIF community. This game is considered a seminal work in the AIF
community, being one of the first games to actually tell a story as well as
being one of the first with a female protagonist. MKJ received a lot of
criticism from mainstream IF over this game, and true there are some things that
could have been done better. However, when taken in the context of most other
AIF works being produced at this time (consisting mostly of rather poorly
written Star Trek fantasies), it was really ahead of its time.
Puzzles/Game play
The puzzles in this game consist mostly of doing the right thing at the right
time. Instead of being a 'treasure hunt' where you basically hunt for and
deliver various articles to other characters, you are expected to do certain
things at certain times. Most of those things involve doing naughty things
either with your friend Jen or with your neighbor Sam. There is a bit of
guess-the-verb as not all of the puzzles are straightforward, and most players
would do well to track down a walkthrough.
Sex
The actual sex scenes themselves are pretty average, as far as hotness goes, but
another aspect of AIF in which this game was in the vanguard was in describing
the feelings Emy experiences as she explores her sexuality. As Emy 'discovers
life', both in the company of Jen and her boyfriend Sam, she is feeling guilty
over a lot of it, and sometimes she is stopped by her own feelings of guilt.
Other times, outside influences interrupt her (such as Sam's or her own mother
arriving at inconvenient times). As such, the sexual interaction experienced by
the player builds from very
little at the beginning to full intercourse as the game progresses. During these
scenes, you get the feeling of a young girl both excited by performing such
'naughty' acts, and guilt-ridden over doing what she knows is wrong.
Technical
This game was written using AGT, which as a platform was the most popular system
at the time. However, it was quickly replaced by such systems as Inform and
TADS, mostly because of
limitations within the AGT system itself. It is very buggy to run now, and very
few players will have the opportunity to play the game in the original AGT
format. You will most likely need to use an AGT emulator such as AGiliTy or
Gargoyle. These emulators sometimes don't interpret the game exactly as the
original AGT interpreter did, and it is a little tough to judge the game based
upon that. As I remember playing it on an older system many years ago, the game
didn't have many bugs, but it wasn't bug free. As I mentioned, there were some
guess-the-verb problems, and sometimes the game didn't recognize or execute
commands when they were supposed to be executed.
Intangibles
This game was written by a Danish author not entirely comfortable with the
English language. As such, there are a lot of phrases and expressions used which
may not translate completely to English. For example, Emy's neighbor Sam is
often referred to as "the cute Sam". *Warning: minor spoiler! Skip to the next
section to avoid!* One of the biggest complaints about this game is the ending.
You simply cannot end the game (other than quitting in the middle) in any way
which prevents Emy's mother from shipping her off to boarding school. This could
be social commentary from the game's author, MKJ, as this was not an uncommon
reaction in 1950's society to the way that Emy behaves. However, many players
felt let down by this ending.
Final Thoughts
Even though this game could be considered rather poor by today's standards, at
the time it was a really good game that really expanded the horizons of AIF.
During the first Erin's awards ceremony (2002), it walked away with 8 Erins,
including Best Female PC, Best Male NPC, Best Story, Best Sex and Best Game (all
in the "First Age" games category). So, despite what many may consider to be its
problems, it is definitely worth checking out.
Rating: A
Reviewed by
Quentin D. Thompson
Okay, I'm laughing. Hard. This game is so stupidly and consistently pathetic
that it's funny. I know it's downright mean of me to say this, but c'mon, MKJ,
couldn't you at least ask some of your buddies on alt.sex.stories to proofread
your erotic masterpiece? The writing sometimes is so abysmal that it makes the
player laugh at all the wrong moments, and the gameplay is absolutely no better.
Simply put, this game is awful.
Gameplay and Interaction: (1/10)
Ha ha ha ha ha. And a few more laughs if you want my feelings verbatim. This one
combines dreadful, "erotic" prose with some of the weirdest and most
guess-the-verb puzzles in the history of AGT. What's even sadder is that some of
the objects seem to have been carefully implemented (including a 20-set
encyclopedia), but none of the more promising bits go anywhere. The player
character, I assume, is a girl of about 16, but character definition goes out of
the window fairly soon - it's just "boff as many people - of either sex - as you
can, and flee". Rap band Niggaz With Attitude were banned in England for writing
a song with a similar theme, and if anyone's interested in emulating that
example, and stamping out this game, please let me know. Its existence is a blot
on the history of IF, and even AIF.
Story and Writing: (0/10)
If you've read that sample dialogue by Emy's mom (she actually says something
like "OOH DEAR! My only baby girl somdomizing with another one!" in the game)
you'll know what the righting - oops, writing - in this game is like, so we'll
leave it at that. As for story, I'm reminded of what a friend of mine
sarcastically replied when asked by someone else if porn flicks had a plot. He
said: "Plot? You don't need a plot in a porn movie. Just turn on the music, get
two people in a room, and go right ahead." This one doesn't even have music, but
if it did, it'd probably be a Vengaboys remixes album. Simply put, this game
sucks. It makes "Detective" look like "Trinity". Also, the ending is soooo
incredibly cheesy and generally idiotic, it makes the ending of "Stiffy Makane"
look like the ending of "Photopia".
Participation: (0/10)
It's hard to get into the flesh - pun CERTAINLY NOT INTENDED - of a player
character whose ideology is "Findum, ****um and Flee", especially when the prose
isn't even comic or self-parodying. The title is also pretty misleading - it
could've been handled in at least 69,105 better ways, but trust MKJ to find the
wrong one.
Humour: (10/10)
All the humour in this game is unintentional, but I'm not holding it against MKJ.
He's worse than Chad Elliott on Prozac.
NPCs: (0/10) DO NOT NAME AN NPC "THE CUTE SAM". NEVER. DO YOU HEAR ME? "THE CUTE
SAM"? I MEAN, YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING, RIGHT? THAT'S NOT _REALLY_ WHAT MKJ
CALLED HIM, RIGHT?? JUST DON'T DO IT.
The schoolgirl friend NPC was probably the only one who had anything non-sexual
to contribute to the game, and that was precious little. Overall, _bleagh_. Even
though the NPCs are above AGT standard, I can't forgive ANYONE who names an NPC
"THE CUTE SAM". Okay?
Design Decisions: (0/10)
MKJ made one bad design decision in this game, and that was writing it in the
first place. That's all.
Overall Impressions:
Though I personally wouldn't want to write AIF, I have no objection to talented
and well-implemented works of IF that include strong sexual elements - and in
that category I would place "Exhibition" as well as "Chix Dig Jerks". This game
was talentless, poorly organized, and had the sexual maturity of a ten-year-old
on testosterone. People like MKJ probably do "adult" IF a greater disservice
than any of the genre's critics. So don't waste your download time on this,
unless you want a few laughs.
My score for "Emy Discovers Life": 0 out of 10.
[This was originally 0 out of 10. I added one for humour and subtracted one for
"Eeagh! THE CUTE SAM??" to arrive at the final score.]
Reviews should be considered copyrighted by their respective authors.
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