 | The MarriageMarch 20th, 2007 |
I mentioned in my discussion of Jon Blow’s Nuances of Design session that to my mind, Rod Humble’s The Marriage was clearly a game that was intended, and succeeded, at being art. Well, now you can download it here, and come to your own conclusions.
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I can definitely see The Marriage as art. I downloaded it after reading the background. The first thought I had was that the blue square was a man and the pink square was a woman (I’m American and that’s what those colors have typically signified in America – maybe less so today than 50 years ago – but still). It took me about 10 min to learn the game rules and I came to my own conclusion about what the meaning of the game was.
I thought the game meant that in order to survive man and woman needed each other. They needed the closeness of each other and each others support. Neglect by either party hurts the other. I also figured the spheres represented the positives and negative aspects of life.
After I had those thoughts I went back to the page and read the Rules Summary and Game Meaning. I found that my meaning was similar yet not the same as the creators meaning.
I’m not sure if others will find the same connection I did, but I thought this was very similar to flow. I say that because when I played flow I found my self thinking about nature and evolution and how when on species survives inevitably it seems to destroy others. I found meaning in the game , I interrupted the game to be more than play. I had the same feelings as I experienced The Marriage.
It would be nice if there was some place to go to find game like this where the simplicity of the rules give rise to a sort of metagame that at first may not be apparent, but through understanding the rules the player starts to understand other things (such as a symbiotic relationship).
I think Mr. Humble did a great job.
I kept losing, then I went to read the stuff, and I saw I had the best game yet without hittng the keyboard! Haven’t beat that game yet.
Thanks solok, glad you enjoyed it!
Kris, ouch 
I mostly figured it out, but then I had no idea what to do when I got to the green squigglies level. Then, I went to the instructions, and saw no mention of a green squigglies level. Maybe I won? 
I am not someone who needs convincing on the art front, so instead, I’ll brain dump a little.
It reminded me a bit of fl0w, in that it sort of rode on a gentle wave of intuition. I found it more difficult than fl0w, in that there were some rules that became apparent much faster than others — but it wasn’t possible to save both squares, with only half the picture. Unsurprisingly, I figured out the blue square’s needs before I learned how to keep the pink square around. I suspect that this has less to do with my own psychology (I’m more of a blue-square type 
), and more to do with the fact that the blue square was made more opaque by the same thing that made it larger — whereas the pink square’s could grow or shrink without affecting its opacity. Also, it seemed to be the blue square which faced crisis sooner, and so I had to learn how to rescue it before I learned that the pink one was in any way endangered.
An interesting question: While the representational nature of this game is compelling, was it necessary for you to consider it art?
(Consider: Paintings do not need to be figurative — or even representational — to be considered art.)
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