Games as Art
the argument has been around for quite a while now, but The Marriage is one that takes abstraction to a new level.
the game's creator can sum it up....
The Marriage is intended to be art. No excuses or ducking. As such its certainly meant to be enjoyable but not entertaining in the traditional sense most games are. This means I am certain to be perceived as being pretentious by some who read this, my apologies. This is also a very difficult game to understand, again my apologies.
Initially you have two squares a blue and a pink, on screen.
Soon different coloured circles will enter and leave the play space.
You have two controls.
1.) When you mouse over the blue or pink square the blue square reduces in size and both squares move towards each other.
2.) When you mouse over a circle it disappears and the pink square gets smaller.
When the edge of the blue square collides (or “kisses”) with the edge of the pink square (but not when they overlap): the blue square shrinks slightly and becomes more transparent. The pink square grows slightly and becomes less transparent. When the blue square touches any coloured circle but black then the blue square becomes less transparent and grows in size to a significant degree. When the pink square touches any coloured circle but black then the pink square grows in size slightly. When the pink or blue square touch a black circle they shrink significantly. As time passes the pink square becomes more transparent. When squares collide with things then a white bar at the bottom of the screen increases in size. When either the pink square of blue square shrink to nothing or become totally transparent then the game is over. The general game flow will be balancing the need to have the pink & blue squares “kiss” to insure the pink square does not fade from the marriage versus the blue square needing to touch the circles to insure it does not fade. The game is my expression of how a marriage feels. The blue and pink squares represent the masculine and feminine of a marriage. They have differing rules which must be balanced to keep the marriage going. The circles represent outside elements entering the marriage. This can be anything. Work, family, ideas, each marriage is unique and the players response should be individual. The size of each square represents the amount of space that person is taking up within the marriage. So for example we often say that one person’s ego is dominating a marriage or perhaps a large personality. In the game this would be one square being so large that the other one simply is trapped within the space of it unable to get to circles and more importantly unable to “kiss” edge to edge. The transparency of the squares represents how engaged that person is in the marriage. When one person fades out of the marriage and becomes emotionally distant then the marriage is over.
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