E-ON

What is E-ON? In the world this takes place in, it's the next-gen of online social networking and you are a new user. To introduce you to it, you have been paired up with another user called Ellie. To begin with this online space is locked off, and by interacting with E-ON's starting features you will gain points that can unlock the next levels. You chat with Ellie and it gives points, then you use those points to buy icons, emotes and other pointless tosh, that expand the world of E-ON. And th-th-th-thats all folks! As far as this being interactive goes, there's nothing more to it than that. It's one big glorified visual novel, which would be fine if it was even mildly engaging, but...uh...it isn't. The first issue is that Ellie is an incredibly boring "person". Waffling on about clothes, furniture, E-ONs "cool features" (yeesh!) and other users tedious lives and interests. Ellie is quite a girlie girl (or a gay man pretending to be female? or non-gender specific?), and to me (as a male) if they were a real person I'd rather bang my head against a wall until I'm unconscious, than spend time listening to them drone on about sh*t I don't care for. But wait! There's a twist....Ellie may not be what they appear to be (a dullard) and may actually be something else. Because, you see, in the world of E-ON it utilises AI (or whatever) to make approximations of personalities, and so Ellie might actually be a dull robot *gasp* But wait! There's another twist....the original Ellie might not actually have been Ellie at all *gasp* and......?? and?? !! Uh...so what? I got far enough into this experience that I'm aware of it approaching some thoughtful subjects, but unfortunately it hasn't done so with an interesting main character, or an interesting way to make your way through the story. Since it's generally a fairly drab visual presentation that offers very little variety of environments or images. And, oh! The music is boring AF twiddly, wishy-washy electronica, so I won't be checking out these "world-renowned" artists either (assuming they're real, and not some kind of meta in-game joke) This is a shame, as I did actually reach out to the developer and ask what their intention was, and IMO this isn't as involving as the subject matter ought to be. For spoiler purposes I can't go into what that is, but at the end of the day I don't consider this to be a vehicle for that narrative that's worth my time. There's interesting concepts and observations here, but they still require proper connection and drama to be intriguing. After about half an hour I grew bored of it, so for me they clearly didn't achieve that.

A quick dive (60-90 min) into a thoughtful & emotional story. There are some interesting and relevant ideas here, and we may find ourselves coming face to face with them as a society sooner than we think! Navigation is maybe a little confusing at first -- whatever. Stick with it for a few min & get immersed.

While based in the near future with an aesthetic that conjures the bygone age of Y2K and web 1.0, E-ON is definitely rooted in the present, and it wants you to think about your life online. E-ON is an interesting little narrative game that you can explore in one good sitting. I'm a big fan of indie VNs that go outside the box, and more broadly speaking, games that leverage their gameplay to support the narrative. In E-ON, you're a user who isn't actually able to access the entire metaverse for a variety of reasons, and you must piece together what life is like and what the truth really is. Some people on social media seem to be mistaking this game for a literal metaverse app, so I think that says a lot about how successfully Frosted Window has pulled off setting a mood. The game is experienced through conversations with Ellie--or rather, the AI version of Ellie--as well as her past blog posts and in-game news... as well as something else that I won't spoil. It's non-linear in the sense that you can explore these areas in whatever order you like. Since you're jumping into a world that is already established, this style of gameplay encourages you to think about what is actually going on here. More than being a game about some dystopian future, or some commentary on the metaverse, E-ON has a very human narrative for a game about an AI, definitely hitting me in similar places to games like Nier. Who exactly is Ellie? How fake exactly is she online? How fake are any of us online? Do we ever get to meet Ellie at all? For me, Ellie was the most compelling part of the game, having to reconcile her online and offline lives. What happens to that online life when someone doesn't log on? I can't honestly get too detailed about the feelings E-ON made me feel without getting into spoilers, but suffice to say E-ON had me feeling some. E-ON definitely wants you to think about how you personally would fit into such a world, and how different that would actually be from how you exist online now. Narrative aside, E-ON is pretty nice to exist in, especially if you're a fan of that good ole Y2K aesthetic. The "hoop" mechanic for selecting options takes a minute to get used to, but before long I found navigating easy (interestingly, there's a lore reason for this mechanic). The music is top tier. My favourite feature was actually the blimps. I spent like five entire minutes just listening to the music and watching the blimps and it was the most relaxed I've felt in a while, highly recommend. The customisation feature is a nice touch, too. Especially since we don't get to see any of Ellie's creations in E-ON, I'm glad we were able to have a little bit of that via app skins. I was kinda hoping I could give Ellie some bubble tea, but we can't have it all. Overall, I enjoyed learning about the world of E-ON and the way the story unfolded. I cared about Ellie quite a lot, regardless of who or what she may be, and I think that's the point. I hope you'll give E-ON a try, and please be nice to Ellie!

Let me preface this with, this isn't a BAD game. There's nothing that would make you say "wow, I don't like this". But what it is, is a bland and boring game. The plot is predictable, all of the interaction takes place entirely in a single interface, and nothing very interesting happens. You get some basic-level AI stuff that's already been gone over exhaustively in other media like the Chinese Room problem, and the game seems vaguely supportive of exploitative business models like TikTok and Meta. There's some very vague "might possibly be queer subtext but also might just be dysmorphia" subtext that could have been interesting but they don't go into it at all. In the end, the entire game is just you look at 50 journal posts and you talk to the AI girl about a dozen topics. That's all. It's definitely not worth $10. The music is nice though.

Major props to this developer for putting all of this together solo! Really cool concept. It will be cool to see these ideas of AI, digital representatives and the secret lives we lead on the internet developed more and more!