Ian Curtis wrote "Love Will Tear Us Apart," his melancholy post-punk
classic on the inevitable dissolution of a failing relationship in August 1979. It's a clear contrast to the boisterous aggression that marked early punk, with languid, hopeless vocals and bleak lyrics. The song
became his epitaph, and Joy Division's. In May 1980, Curtis had taken his own life, "Love Will Tear Us
Apart" chiseled on his headstone. Joy Division floundered for a while and
re-formed as seminal post-punk band New Order. In the four decades
since Curtis wrote the tune into the rock 'n' roll
pantheon, it's been covered a thousand times. But Gordon Calleja and Mighty Box have shifted mediums entirely and
turned “Love Will Tear Us Apart” into a game.
Will Love Tear Us Apart is a videogame adaptation of Joy Division's dirge-pop standard and there's nothing else quite like it. The art is grim and hand-drawn, the color palette starkly monochromatic, the gameplay strangely (and intentionally) unsatisfying. A playthrough clocks in at about the length of an EP, and in that time WLTUA recreates the emotions of a doomed relationship with the game mechanics of three dramatically different genres (one based on each verse of the song): a rock-paper-scissors puzzle, a fiendishly difficult Pac-man-esque maze chase, and a first-person exploration of an emotional landscape. Developed by the Malta-based Mighty Box from a design concept by games academic Gordon Calleja, WLTUA doesn't try to inspire feelings of triumph and accomplishment in its players. Instead, Calleja & co. strived to mimic the emotions of frustration and loss on the melancholy path to a breakup. In the first puzzle, the player sits across from his/her significant other and each chooses to understand, cajole, or angrily dominate the partner.
Will Love Tear Us Apart is a videogame adaptation of Joy Division's dirge-pop standard and there's nothing else quite like it. The art is grim and hand-drawn, the color palette starkly monochromatic, the gameplay strangely (and intentionally) unsatisfying. A playthrough clocks in at about the length of an EP, and in that time WLTUA recreates the emotions of a doomed relationship with the game mechanics of three dramatically different genres (one based on each verse of the song): a rock-paper-scissors puzzle, a fiendishly difficult Pac-man-esque maze chase, and a first-person exploration of an emotional landscape. Developed by the Malta-based Mighty Box from a design concept by games academic Gordon Calleja, WLTUA doesn't try to inspire feelings of triumph and accomplishment in its players. Instead, Calleja & co. strived to mimic the emotions of frustration and loss on the melancholy path to a breakup. In the first puzzle, the player sits across from his/her significant other and each chooses to understand, cajole, or angrily dominate the partner.
While
each verse is represented by a different game genre, the strong and distinctly
creepy art style ties the work together as a whole, and each level is tied
together by impressive animation sequences. The game starts by transforming a
series of wave-forms (a clear reference to Joy Division’s iconic Unknown
Pleasures album artwork) into a
landscape where the first verse-game takes place. The second level challenges
the player to control both members of the doomed relationship simultaneously
through two different mazes, a reinterpretation of Curtis' "And we’re changing our ways / taking
different roads." The final stage puts the player in a desolate
first-person black and white landscape and guides them to the conclusion of the
relationship entirely by sound.
https://willlovetearusapart.com/game.html