Digital: A Love Story

A 2010 Visual Novel by Christine Love, available for free.

The story is set in the early days of the Internet, in the era of dial-up modems and BBS boards. You shoot the breeze, harass idiots, engage in a bit of playful hacking, and even strike up a relationship with a user named "*Emilia". However, when BBS boards suddenly start going down one after another, cutting you off from the people you've met, it slowly becomes clear that a sinister force is threatening this brave new digital world.

See also don't take it personally babe, it just ain't your story and Spiritual Successor Analogue: A Hate Story, both by the same author.


 * Addressing the Player: You're asked for your full name at the beginning, just like a real computer would.
 * ASCII Art: Or more properly, ANSI art, as befitting the setting.
 * A.I. Is a Crapshoot
 * Bilingual Bonus: Both "Amie" and "Amiga" are feminine forms of the word "friend", in French and Spanish, respectively.
 * Brand X: The computers used are "Amie", named after the popular real-world Amigas.
 * Chekhov's Gun: Certain users have their handles start with an asterisk..
 * Diegetic Interface: The entire game takes place on an Amie computer.
 * Heroic Mime: You can't see any of your own messages, so it's on the player to intuit how their character responds to each post.
 * Though you can see the titles from the messages your character has sent.
 * At times, if you reply to certain users, they'll tell you off. Just what did your character say to them to piss them off?
 * They could be over-reacting. Lots of people on the Internet do.
 * Historical In-Joke: The and their effects sound an awful lot like the Morris Worm. Those names, in addition, are of . Add in the fact that this game is set in 1988, and the joke is complete.
 * Interface Screw: A buffer overflow causes this. If you don't.
 * Painting the Medium: Early in the game,.
 * Password Slot Machine: One part of the game has you crack a password with a simplified dictionary attack.
 * Playful Hacker: Several users and eventually the player take this role. As the game's release page notes, advancing in the game requires you to commit telephone fraud, exploit a buffer overflow and/or "hack the Gibson".
 * Retraux: The interface is in the style of 80's computers.
 * Shout-Out: Sector 001 BBS. As befitting a Star Trek-themed BBS, its phone number is 622-1701, which in telephone letters can be rendered as NCC-1701, the Enterprise's registry number.
 * Another one is to one of the author's own games.
 * Shown Their Work: The networks and history of viruses in this game are based on real-life information.
 * Spock Speak: speaks only in syntax.
 * Spoony Bard: Emilia.
 * Thanking the Viewer
 * Wham! Line:.
 * Wham! Line:.