Playing Along with Evelyn

The phrase “the internet is for porn” isn’t too shy of the truth. If you were graced with unrestricted internet access, there’s no doubt that you’ll be exposed to inappropriate content like I have. I didn’t develop an addiction, but I did see some things that stuck with me, and it wasn’t just pornography. I came across books, music, and even video games that showed me what kind of things humanity is attracted to. 
The Flash game, Playing Along with Evelyn, is no exception to this. The game I’m talking about feels like something that would go in the “childhood trauma” category, but I can’t exactly call it that when it definitely wasn’t meant for kids to begin with. 
When I was around 12 or 13, my dad gave me a small Dell laptop running Windows 7. He was pretty lazy growing up, and the only reason I got it was because he wanted something to babysit me while he did other things. He eventually snapped out of it and realized that I need some sort of cognitive thought, but before he put my laptop away, I used to download all sorts of SWF files and have them in a folder. The websites I went on were of the kiddy, girly-aesthetic, with games that would nowadays be considered stupid, like the ones where you had to kiss a boy while background characters weren’t looking. 
This game, though, brought back bad memories to me as an adult. I remembered it scaring me for its extreme subject matter, but because of my head being so fuzzy after those years, I couldn’t remember what the game’s purpose was. That was until I found my old laptop from all those years back, along with a charger that somehow still worked. It took a hot minute to start up, and so did opening a few applications, but just when I was thinking about pawning it, I saw the folder. My collection of old, girly games from the mid-to-late 2010s.
The game that scared me fuckless as a kid sat right in the middle of the file lineup. I would’ve been able to load the game on my laptop, but downloading a new standalone player on the OS would’ve been very time consuming considering how slow it was. I ultimately decided to just pack all of those games on a thumb drive and transport it to my home computer. 
After downloading a new standalone player on my desktop, I ran the game and there it was. Up came a cutesy menu with the title written in cursive on the left reading Playing Along with Evelyn, and a digital drawing of her on the right, all while some happy xylophone music played in the background. She had short, purple hair, with a striped, turquoise dress, a golden earring, and a big flower in her hair. How deceitful that title screen was. Just looking at it reminded me of how good it was at keeping things hidden. 
Upon pressing play, it took me to a pixelated image of a house interior, and a pink-bordered text box showed up at the bottom of the screen. Damn, I forgot how early you met Evelyn here. Upon clicking to traverse through the text, she fades into view with a big, cute smile and begins to speak to the player. 
“Hi there! I’m so happy to see you! How’s my big strong man doing? Aww, look at you, all fancied up in that tuxedo of yours! You’re too sweet, you know that? I got us reservations at a really nice restaurant, all thanks to my accounting job! You don’t gotta worry about paying for the food, I have that taken care of! So, you ready to go?”
Once Evelyn asks that question, two choices pop up on screen. Leave the house and go with her, or give her something first. I clicked on the latter, as I didn’t exactly remember what this choice gave me in my last playthrough.
“Hmm? You wanna give me something? What is it? FLOWERS?! Oh, you shouldn’t have! What did I ever do to get a man like you?”
A small jingle played, and the text box on the bottom only showed a few words. “Extra functions unlocked.” I didn’t understand what it meant by that. Could it have been talking about that date sequence I remembered so vaguely, or maybe the end? After leaving the house, there I was with Evelyn, sitting with her at a marble table, with another pixelated image of a restaurant behind her. The background played smooth jazz that sounded like it was recorded from a cabaret club. She spoke to me once again. 
“Ooooh, this is gonna be so good! You ordered quite the fine-looking dish, big guy! Now, while we wait for our food to come, why not talk some? I’d love to get to know you more!”
This is the part where things get more choice-based than in the beginning. The game gave you options to talk to Evelyn. To be more specific, you could ask her questions, tell her about yourself, and compliment her. Those three choices each opened up three extra ones to pick. To give context:
* If you chose the “compliment” action, the choices you got were “your hair is gorgeous,” “your eyes are beautiful,” and “your dress has such lovely colors.” Picking one would result in Evelyn thanking you and telling you why that certain part of her looks the way it does. For instance, clicking on “your hair is gorgeous” results in her telling you about how she got the flower in her hair, and why purple is her favorite color.
* Choosing “ask a question” gives you three things to ask her. One of them is something personal, like asking her where she grew up. The second choice is simple, asking what her favorite animal is. The last one gives her a fun question to answer, being “where do you dream of working at?”
* Telling her about yourself results in you either telling her about your job, your home life, or what you do in your spare time. 
Upon finishing up every choice given during the date sequence, Evelyn exclaims that the food is ready, and how delicious it looks. A transparent image of what looks like beef Wellington appears in front of Evelyn, prompting an animation of her licking her lips. The game gives you the choice to feed her a forkful of your food or finish the date, but this isn’t really important. It’s basically just giving her some of your food, and then she says thank you. Nothing changes no matter how many times you do it.
And then, we get to the after-date part of the game.
When the date ends, and you arrive home, the home interior background from the beginning is now darkened, and the background music consists of a soothing acoustic guitar. Evelyn stands in front of you, blushing.
“That was a fun date! You know, meeting you has been a blast. You were so nice and patient to me, and I can’t thank you enough for that. Now then, let’s play! Nothing like relaxing after a lovely night out, right?”
The text box then displays two words on-screen. “Interaction time!” At this point, the game gives you a sidebar with plenty of options to choose from. The options were fairly simple. Petting her, poking her, kissing her, etcetera. Some of the options were less choice-based and were more competitive, like playing chess or Rock Paper Scissors with her. 
Then, I clicked on the option with the question mark symbol. All the mucky memories came flooding back. It gave me one option, that being a picture of a closed hand. Clicking on it caused my cursor to turn into a balled-up fist. The text box read: “Swipe horizontally, or click on her face.”
I clicked on her cheek, and the music stopped. A punching sound effect played once I clicked, and her head flew to the left. The sidebar disappeared, and so did the cursor. After looking down for a moment with her eyes wide open, she slowly turns to me and lifts her head up, holding her jowl.
“Ow… that… really hurt…”
The sidebar comes back. There are two routes you can take, but it will result in certain features being taken away. If you decide to go back to the previous menu and use the more loving methods on her, she will eventually calm down and the music will return back to normal, but the question mark option will be crossed out. However, if you choose to hit her again with the same fist cursor, tears begin to well up in her eyes.
“Did I… do something wrong?”
At this point, you are able to go back to the previous menu, but every option is striked off except for the question mark, meaning you can only use the options from the other section. Hitting her a third time causes the background music to change to a reversed piano, and sound effects of a woman hyperventilating play. Evelyn herself looked terrified, like she knew how much torment she was going to face. There was no going back.
The sidebar didn't just have a fist on it. It had four extra tools to choose from. Those tools were a belt, a rusty pipe, a cigarette butt, and a frying pan. All of which were used to hurt Evelyn. Compared to all of this, however, there was one thing I didn't remember finding: the "extra functions" mentioned at the beginning. 
On the bottom left of the screen, when having the fist equipped, text read "Right click to scroll functions." It turns out that the fist wasn't just for punching. You could also slap and grab Evelyn. Slapping required swiping the cursor left and right (like the punch function, except that one let you click on her face too), while grabbing had you click on certain parts of Evelyn's body. You had the ability to grab her throat, face, and hair. Left clicking would cause your grip to tighten, while right clicking releases her from the grip. 
The other tools were fairly self explanatory. The rusty pipe and frying pan dealt greater pain, with the frying pan leaving black marks on her instead of bruises. The cigarette butt was there to leave small burn marks, and the belt acted as some sort of whip that not only left bruises, but red spots on the place you hit her.
However, there are certain places that the game doesn't allow you to touch.
* While you are able to grab her hair and pull it, you are not allowed to use any of the tools or hand functions on her flower. Attempting to do so results in the text on the bottom left corner to change to "You're not deseeding the dirt."
* Trying to use any option on Evelyn's ear will also not work, changing the text to "No. Too fragile."
* Attempting to use an action on her breasts will result in the text saying "Unimportant. Hands off."
The more tools that are introduced to her, the more Evelyn will scream. The more hurt she is, the more she'll cry, with mascara running down her face. No matter what is done, she will not die. Even choking her with a tightened grip for a long period of time won't kill her. After around 10 minutes of "interaction time," she will stand in place, her heavy breath slowing down. The bordered text box shows up once again, this time from the perspective of the character you're playing as. 
"How artistic. I could just snap a hundred photos of you... well? What are you waiting for? Go home. You get a five minute head-start."
With that, Evelyn quickly fades out of view. The sounds of fast footsteps and a door shutting ring through my speakers, and the view fades to black. Text then shows up on the screen saying "12 hours later," and the game cuts back to the interior setting, now lit up again like in the beginning. No police, no rubble. It was all clean. This is another thing I don't remember happening, maybe because I didn't play through the game enough last time. Despite how much I wanted to stop playing, I had to see what this was. A disastrous, inquiring mind got the better of me.
After 10 seconds of silence, a knock is heard, and then a door opens. Evelyn fades into view, holding a tissue up to her nose before removing it. Somehow, she had no blood or tears of mascara like the night before, and she was smiling. She then spoke, with the text box fading into view again.
"Hey... I'm sorry if things didn't go the way you wanted last night. I was only trying to make you happy. I don't know what I could've done to upset you, but... I still love you. Do I remind you of someone? Was it something I said?"
Silence ensues. What kind of frustrating bullshit was I reading?
"...I'm sorry. Whatever it was, I'm sorry. If it helps, I'll stay... and... let you take it out on me. I don't like seeing anyone like this, especially you. You were nice to me during our date. You gave me flowers. Now, I'd might as well... return the favor. Have at it."
The music doesn't turn back on, but the sidebar from yesterday shows up again, this time with no back arrow button. She stood there, softly smiling. I closed the game right then and there.
I don't understand how I could've found something like this on a kids' Flash game website of all things. I don't get how someone can see this and even remotely think about putting it on their website to begin with after what I saw. What made them think it was so fitting? The artstyle? The theme? What did the other kids think of this game upon playing it? I don't have an answer for that, because when I look up the name of the game online, I don't get any results of what I'm looking for. Then, I realized something. There's an "about" button on the menu.
Upon launching the game again and clicking "about," it showed two bodies of text: a description of what the game was about, and the source of where it came from, with the only credit being to "Anon." I will not give the URL, nor will I give the name of the website, and you will see why in a minute.
The Wayback Machine gave me broken links that led to nowhere, but upon going to archive.today, and searching the name of the website on the snapshot query, I found the reason why the game contained that sort of content. The original source was some sort of 4chan-esque forum, where people shared various forms of torture pornography. Animations, videos, photos, all of it. The only way this game could've been put on Flash sites was for it to have been spread outside of the forum. And so, it was.
As mentioned before, I am now an adult. I have a loving boyfriend, whom I explore the world and joke around with every so often. I love him with all my heart, and he loves me back. Whenever I think of that game, however, what scares me the most is not the fact that it turned out to be made to satisfy someone's sick fantasies. No.
It's the idea of me losing everything simply by clenching my fist.
Category:Video Games
Category:Lafawnda's Reading Hour
Category:NSFL
Category:Weekly pasta