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Review
It's another entirely normal day at the office. Time to sort through your emails.
You work at an office that processes print orders and provides services for online content. Everyone has their job. Jeff, for instance, covers printing. As for you, it’s implied that you work in Editing. So why does everyone seem to think that your job revolves around juggling emails?
Oh, and something odd may be happening with your coworkers…
Every day I get emails is a Twine game and an Ectocomp 2025 submission in the La Petite Mort category. (I love the cover art.)
Gameplay is linear and occurs over several days. It consists of forwarding a stack of emails to the right colleague, and these colleagues are spread across multiple departments. Sales. Tech. Accessibility. And so forth. Why do you even have these emails? No idea.
Send to Caroline
Send to Enrique
Send to Jeff
Send to Sushila
The act of forwarding emails to the right colleague is superficial. Forward a tech-related issue to Enrique? He’ll forward it to Sushila for you. Aside from feeling pleased at remembering who works in what department, your choices here don’t affect the gameplay’s trajectory.
Instead, emails are the mechanism through which the plot unfolds. Initially, forwarding emails is followed by the bliss of knowing that they’re no longer your problem.
You forward the email to Jeff. Now you don't have to think about that anymore.
(Spoiler - click to show)Until your coworkers vanish one by one. If you forward an email to them, the system acts as if they never existed. If you bring this up with your boss, he claims that he does not know who you’re talking about. In fact, he claims that these so-called coworkers’ jobs have always been your job ever since you were hired. You must be slacking off.
This kicks off a trend that continues for the rest of the game: Each day, a coworker vanishes without a trace, and each disappearance means more work for you. To top it off, you seem to be the only person who notices.
Now you don't have to think about that anymore.
Such irony.
And while you might consider the possibility that it’s all in the protagonist’s head, there are external signs that suggest otherwise.
…the fluorescent light flickers even more erratically. You wonder if the office chatter is quieter than usual today…
Will you be next?
After every coworker disappears, you visit your boss again. He dismisses you and recommends that you balance your responsibilities with Copilot. Because that’s going to help. And so, all you can do is return to processing emails and wait for your turn to disappear. The game then ends.
The way it ends could have been smoother. It simply ends with “Return to start” which felt abrupt. This clunkiness gives the feeling of, oh, the game’s over? ok then.
I must admit, I thought there was going to be a big twist where it’s revealed that your boss murdered or is behind the disappearance of your coworkers and is pretending not to know who you’re talking about. That said, I think the existentialism of endless office work and the protagonist’s quiet acceptance of their looming demise is just as horrifying.
Appearance-wise, the game uses a basic light blue background similar to the cover art. In fact, its cover art was initially what attracted me to the game in the first place. These multiple shades of blue make my spine tingle. There is also a cream text box with rounded corners, and this looks nice against the blue background.
To conclude, Every day I get emails is a blend of horror and humor set in an office. It has simple design, linear gameplay, and an uncomplicated story, and yet, it has suspense as (Spoiler - click to show)we slowly realize the implications for the protagonist as their coworkers steadily vanish.
However, while I enjoyed it, I didn’t find it to be particularly earthshattering, either. I think the ending could be more fleshed out. Then again, the author only had four hours to make it, and it definitely feels like a finished product. So, take my criticism with a grain of salt.
