Online gamers are reliving the frustration of their failed relationships in a video game interpretation of Joy Division’s 1979 anthem Love will tear us apart.
“Games are simulations, but none have really managed to recreate human emotions in the same way music or poetry has. I wanted to bridge these two worlds,” game developer and university researcher Gordon Calleja told Times of Malta.
The inspiration for the browser-based game, Will love tear us apart?, came to Prof. Calleja earlier this year after the post punk classic got stuck in his head.
The song was stuck in my head and one night it just hit me
“The song was stuck in my head and then one night it just hit me. I immediately contacted a designer about the idea and she loved it,” he said.
Lead singer Ian Curtis’ signature track ostensibly reflected the problems in his turbulent marriage to Deborah Curtis as well as the depression which lead to his subsequent suicide in 1980.
Picking up on the song’s melancholy themes, Prof. Calleja orchestrated a dizzying trip down the rabbit hole of relationships, heartbreak and the soul wrenching emotions attached.
“Separations are rife with arguments and the ultimate acknowledgment that someone always gets hurt in love. The game puts you in situations where you have to make tough choices much like a relationship,” he said.
Since its launch earlier this summer, Will love tear us apart? has attracted the attention of more than 50,000 gamers and 180 publications including Rolling Stone Magazine, NME and Kill Screen.
However, the reception for the innovative game was not always peachy. Project manager Costantino Oliva said the reaction to the game by Joy Division’s Facebook fans was hardly negligible: the band’s fans launched a failed boycott against the game, insisting it sullied the music.
“People were posting things like ‘Is no art form safe from this anymore?’ Others were urging people not to buy the game. The game is free,” Mr Oliva said.
The project, funded by the Malta Arts Fund, took the team of seven designers and computer wizards several months of late-night development sessions, but Prof. Calleja says it was all part of the creative process.
“We didn’t have much of a budget so we did this after work and on weekends. That said, many of the best projects are born that way,” he said.
The game’s nightmarish reality first drops the player into a rock-paper-scissors level where tarot cards depict emphatic, passive and aggressive reactions to an androgynous avatar’s disposition. Prof. Calleja said the level was based on the idea that fights are less about the words being said and more about the emotions felt.
The other two levels are based on the main verses of the cult ballad and include a myriad of haunting scenes designed by artist Steffi Degiorgio. Prof. Calleja explained that each character, designed by Anthony Catania, is swallowed whole by the other in a symbolic gesture of submissive love.
“A major theme the game delves into is submission. I think when the game is played alone and in the right frame of mind, this comes across,” he said.
Basic game design holds that players should always be able to advance to the next level. However, Prof. Calleja insisted the players’ frustration was the key to the game’s winning formula.
“We wanted the player to feel like he’s being cheated. We want them to feel angry, frustrated and to eventually give in to the reality that you can’t win,” he said.
No surprise then that the game was described by Spin Magazine as “The most depressing game ever made”.