Emily Enough: Imprisoned

By: Xander

On: August 31st, 2007

An adventure game by Logan Worsley (in fact, the only adventure game by Logan Worsley), Emily Enough is the story of an 11 year old girl, who like other girls her age occasionally has moments of unpleasantness between her parents and herself. Unlike other girls, though, instead of acting out and hiding under the stairs, Emily decides to slice her family apart to free herself from their ineptitude. Of course, she then ends up in the asylum, where all the medical staff have been replaced with pharmaceutical representatives, a lawyer tries to keep the operation running smoothly from within the female toilets, and a sole security guard polices the entire joint between smelling the underwear he’s not quite ready to sell on eBay just yet.

It could be perfect for Emily, but the whole operation stinks too much for her liking… especially the patients. So, it’s up to you and Emily to work together to escape before it’s too late. Or before Aquaria comes out, because like hell we’ll still be helping her then. I’m sure she’ll understand…

(Thanks go to Moshboy this time around!)

It’s a relatively nice looking game, though the characters could be a bit more animated (except Lobotomized Lou – he does have a reputation to uphold after all), and the audio is a little unsettling at times, but it does fit the mood of the game perfectly. The real compulsion to play the game, however, is within the story and the characters. Emily is the embodiment of narcissism and sadism, and certainly the former sticking before the latter. Her black humour is what fills the empty halls of the asylum, and really fuels your efforts to try and help her escape her fate (while valiantly trying to not play ‘An Untitled Story’ despite really wanting to finish that damned underwater section once and for all).

Her dialog with the other members of the cast can be fairly hit or miss, and some of the topical humour might be lost on us now (yep, there’s a 9/11 joke, at a point where the only ones who haven’t made one are the people comatose inside this very asylum) but all in all it’s entertaining to read, and is genuinely funny, for the most part. The peak of which is definitely the therapy session, where Emily sits amongst her new co-habitants and everyone discusses what they do and don’t like about hacking people to pieces. It’s a dark tale, and sometimes the unfolding events can be more unsettling than funny (something Emily even comments on herself, retorting ’Don’t look at me. You wanted to do it too’) but then, without the dark side, it wouldn’t have the edge it does over similar games in the genre, and the candy-shell of the humour coating its sinister and chocolately centre is really the perfect way to offer its audience what would otherwise be much too disturbing to be comfortably enjoyed.

As it stands, it’s great to see an adventure game with an anti-heroine who isn’t afraid to bend the rules of clean gaming to get what she wants. And with the fear of being stabbed in the eyeballs being as overwhelming as it is, it’s probably best to give her the attention she demands.