10 Brutally Hard Decisions Video Games Forced You To Make

7. Not Having The Courage To Tell Someone You Love Them - Emily Is Away

Developed by Kyle Seeley and actually available for free on Steam, Emily is Away is a narrative-focused game all set within an old-school instant-messaging client. Now, that description might make some people leap out the nearest window, but its execution of what a certain generation's furtive exploration of digital interaction was like works wonders in retrospect for anyone in their mid-twenties and up.

Framed across a number if interactions over time, you talk to the titular Emily across high school and college, going through the motions of flirting with the idea of being with her, hearing about her other relationships, having some of your own, and gradually growing apart. It's a great comment on how we change and slowly lose many of the friends we grow up with, and if you've ever been in the position of falling for someone, only to have life's circumstances get in the way, it'll play your heartstrings like a violin. Why? Because near the close of the game you have the option - depending on other things you've said to this point - to tell Emily how you really feel. However, in typing out the appropriate sentiment, your character will delete the sentence and reply with something far more mundane.

You realise you don't have the courage to say what's needed despite everything, and one by one the dialogue options get more and more pedestrian, until you must decide to say goodbye to her for good.