Across the history of gaming there have been numerous titles that have knocked players on their collective butts. Narrowing down the ten most difficult was a tricky task in itself, since the challenge of a game can be very subjective. In gathering our top ten, we gave favor to titles widely considered difficult by both IGN editors and readers and that derived that challenge through game design.
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, I have tried to assist those who are interested but frustrated with the rules summary below.
The game came out of my explorations into games as art. This thinking started a few years ago out of a series of discussions with Raph Koster when we both worked at Sony Online Entertainment. While we ended up taking different approaches to it, the aim of pushing out the edges of games as art in our spare time was a common goal. I was also very taken with Jonathan Blow’s “Raspberry” which seemed to me to start to push towards expression through gameplay.
I walked into my previous place of retail enjoyment in the mall in which it was situated, punched in and had a normal day until she arrived.
