The Marriage (video game)
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| Designer(s) | Rod Humble |
| Platform(s) | Windows |
| Release | 2006 |
| Genre(s) | Art game |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
The Marriage is an experimental art game for Windows created by Rod Humble in 2006. Humble had set out to explore the kinds of artistic expression unique to video games, leading him to express his feelings associated with marriage by relying on game mechanics rather than traditional storytelling, audio, or video elements.
The game's instructions suggest playing it first, before reading the detailed description of its mechanics and intended meanings.
The player interacts using only mouse movement, hovering over abstract shapes. The player's actions or inaction enlarge or shrink pink and blue squares, increase or decrease their opacity, and move them towards or away from each other. To sustain the existence of both squares, the player must balance activities which increase the size and opacity of each. Humble intended this to convey the complexities of balancing the sometimes conflicting needs of partners in a marriage. The background color changes as the game progresses, eventually arriving at a fireworks display on a black background if the player is able to sustain a balance.
By combining heavily constrained mechanisms for interaction and control with abstract visuals, the game encourages experimentation and meaning-making based on kinds of engagement and interpretation.
Humble is an industry veteran known for his high-profile roles in the development of several well-known games, including EverQuest, The Sims, and Second Life, though his independent work is noted for its experimentation. The Marriage is his second attempt at a game which derives personal meaning primarily through mechanics, following A Walk With Max and preceding Stars Over Half Moon Bay.The Marriage is comparatively and intentionally more abstract than its predecessor to further restrict the role played by more traditional audio, video, and storytelling elements.
The core ideas and mechanics behind The Marriage began while Humble was on a trip to Carmel, California with his wife and developed over the weeks that followed through a process he described as "like carving with the grain of the wood or painting with the brushstrokes rather than against them."
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Wikipedia