This is a preprint version of the following article: Möring, Sebastian (2015): “Simulated Metaphors of Love. How The Marriage Applies Metaphors to Simulate a Love Relationship.” In: Game Love: Essays on Play and Affection, edited by Jessica Enevold und Esther MacCullum-Stewart, 196–215. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. Simulated Metaphors of Love. How The Marriage Applies Metaphors to Simulate a Love Relationship Sebastian Möring Introduction Recently several games about love relationships have been published, such as The Marriage (Humble 2006, Fig 13.1), Love (Contrebasse 2010) and My Divorce (Douville 2010). At first play they do not really reveal what they are about, as they are semiotically abstract, i.e. they display geometrical forms floating through a playing field, showing behaviors that are seemingly not easily connected to their source systems. Only their titles give a hint regarding the source system they are based on – love. Ian Bogost describes this as an “ambiguity between its [The Marriage’s] title and the behaviors it implements” (Bogost 2011, 14). The focus of this chapter is to examine the representation of love in the graphically abstract game The Marriage. As an abstract game about love it does not, for instance, depict any anthropomorphic avatars such as those found in The Sims 3 (2009) but consist of abstract geometrical shapes instead. In Game Studies some authors tend to call the less detailed and more abstract aspects of simulation games “metaphorical” (e.g. Crawford 2003, 29–31; Salen and Zimmerman 2004, 423; Juul 2005, 170–175; Bogost 2011, 17). Most often they apply a distinction drawn from the field of rhetoric between literal and non-literal speech, of that the latter is often referred to as being metaphorical. Thus, one can say there seem to exist two different kinds of games: (a) detailed, realistic and mimetic simulations and (b) abstract and non-realistic metaphors. This leads to the following question concerning the representation of love in The Marriage: if The Sims 3 is a more or less detailed and realistic simulation of love relationships, is The Marriage consequently a metaphor? How does The Marriage represent love? My hypothesis is that game love in the case of The Marriage is a simulation of our largely metaphorically (and metonymically) structured concept of love on the levels of abstract semiotics and equally abstract mechanics and dynamics. Before I can discuss this thesis I will present some ways in that The Marriage has been discussed in Game Studies with regard to metaphor so far (Juul 2007; Rusch 2009; Begy 2010; Bogost 2011). I will introduce the terms (a) simulation (Frasca 2003; Juul 2005; Hartmann 2005; Aarseth 2004; Begy 2010) and (b) metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Kövecses 2010). Eventually I will examine our metaphorically structured understanding of love and finally analyze how The Marriage represents the metaphors of love on the level of its semiotics, mechanics and dynamics. The Marriage The Marriage consists of two squares, blue and pink; representing man and woman, and circles, colored or black, entering and leaving the rectangular playing field. The primary goal is to “maintain the relationship” (Bogost 2011, 14) that coincides with keeping the game going as long as possible, as is also the case with Tetris (Pajitnov, Gerasimov, and Pavlovsky 1984). This means the player has to prevent the squares from dissolving entirely, since they become increasingly transparent or shrink if the player does not influence the course of the game. A game is played well when both squares are fully opaque, and so big that they fill out large parts of the playing field. The player has four ways of influencing the course of the game. Firstly, moving the mouse over the game’s title makes the game start, accompanied by the fading out of the title. The second possible input is to push a button on the mouse or keyboard after the game has started. This will end the game immediately and make it fade to black. The third input is to move the cursor over one of the squares, that makes both of the squares deviate from their trajectory and move towards each other until collision. When colliding, the pink square becomes less opaque and grows. The blue square grows when it collides with colored circles (except for black ones). The fourth input is to move the cursor over one of the circles (no matter if black or colored), that makes the pink square shrink and the circles disappear. If the player does this too often in a short time span, the pink square dissolves and the game ends. Figure 13. 1. The Marriage (2006), Screenshot. Used With Permission Primarily because of its abstract semiotics and the alleged difficulty to meaningfully relate the game with its meaning, The Marriage has received some academic attention. For Doris Rusch, The Marriage is an example of how games can allow for a deeper understanding of the human condition (Rusch 2009). Where one sees squares she sees “partners”; where one sees colliding squares she sees them “kissing”; where one sees squares reacting differently according to certain inputs and game states, she sees the different “needs” of the partners in a relationship. Rusch’s interpretation of the game is very metaphorical. She also reads the game according to the explanation provided on the website of its author, Rod Humble (Humble 2009) explaining that the game is based on his personal experience with his marriage. Following Rusch (2009), one can even read a biased concept of marriage into the game. According to the game rules, the female square is clingy, as it grows and gets more opaque only when colliding with the blue square. The blue square, conversely, needs some freedom, and thus needs to collide with colored circles to become less transparent and grow bigger. Negotiating The Marriage primarily under the premise of procedurality or procedural rhetoric as understood by Ian Bogost, she concludes that games that represent abstract ideas such as love have to rely on metaphors to make these ideas tangible. Yet, Rusch does not explain how this would work in general, and consequently does not show this with The Marriage. Evaluating the rhetorical success of the implemented model of love, Rusch concludes that the game does not “evoke the experience of being in a relationship” (ibid.), contrary to Humble’s suggestion the game would express “how marriage feels” (Humble 2009; also in Rusch 2009). However, Rusch connects to the game’s meaning on a cognitive level. She realizes that the game does not actually model the experience of being in a relationship but “depicts [...] the reflection process about its mechanisms” (ibid.). Her conclusion is that the reflection process of the mechanisms of a marriage is not only depicted on the visual level but also modeled in the system itself (ibid.). Instead of emphasizing the fact that the game depicts the reflection process, one can also say that it depicts an abstract, though very general concept of love, featuring some structural elements of a love relationship such as lovers, closeness, events, size etc. In addition, one should point out that the game supports a very male-stereotypical notion of a marriage indicated by the coloring of the squares as well as their behavior (freedom loving male blue square and clingy female pink square). This is most likely due to the designer’s own male gender being shaped by his cultural context, that might primarily support a heterosexual concept of a marriage. In order to avoid a male-stereotypical limitation of the possible interpretations of the game one could have called it “Relationship”, or at least give the squares an unconventional color coding. However, it is possible to ignore the offered gender coding in the game and re-signify it while playing/interpreting the game. This would imply that the behaviors of the squares were significant for different partners with different characters but without any emphasis on a specific gender, since lovers, closeness, events, size etc. play a role in all kinds of love relationships. The latter elements are more significant than the blue and pink color coding of the game tokens. Ian Bogost discusses The Marriage as an example for “proceduralist games” that “are process intensive […] [and] rely primarily on computational rules to produce their artistic meaning” (2011, 13). These games apply “procedural rhetoric”, that Bogost roughly sums up as “an argument made through a computer model” (2011, 13), i.e. the game sheds a specific light on a love relationship and thereby makes an argument. In his view “The Marriage is about the push and pull of maintaining a relationship” (Bogost 2011, 14). Bogost also makes the distinction between simulation and metaphor via proceduralism: “at a time when videogames focus on realistically simulating experiences, proceduralism offers metaphoric treatments of ideas” (2011, 17). Unfortunately, Bogost also fails to reveal how The Marriage is metaphoric. Jesper Juul mentions The Marriage in his paper “A Certain Level of Abstraction” (2007). Sticking to his known distinction of games as fiction and as rules, the level of abstraction of games can be seen as “the border between content that is purely fictional and the content that is presented in the fiction as well as implemented in the rules of a game” (Juul 2007, 510). With regard to The Marriage, Juul comes to the conclusion that it “can only be perceived as radical abstraction” (Juul 2007, 512) since not only are the rules an abstraction of the fiction, but also the fiction of The Marriage (its semiotic layer) is very abstract as opposed to its real-world referent. Therefore, he considers it an “allegorical representation of a relationship” (Juul 2007, 513). Given that an allegory is generally understood as an “extended […] metaphor” (OED Online 2011), one can consider metaphor and allegory synonymous for the purpose of this chapter. Where Rusch suspects that the representation of abstract subjects through games can in general only work metaphorically, Bogost and Juul both subscribe to the opposition of mimetic simulation games versus abstract metaphor games. Jason Begy (2010), in his work on metaphors in semiotically abstract games develops a conceptual opposition of simulation and metaphor. As opposed to Bogost, Juul and Rusch, he classifies The Marriage as being an abstract simulation and not a metaphor. Begy thereby supports the contrary view to the aforementioned approaches by allowing for the possibility of an abstract simulation. It is to Begy’s Master’s thesis that I partly owe the inspiration for this chapter. As one can see from these partly opposed discussions, The Marriage poses the question of whether it represents love as a metaphor or as a simulation. It seems like the game is more often considered metaphorical by most authors, since it features abstract geometrical objects instead of game characters in high resolution. However, as we will see in the following section, the degree of abstraction is not the distinguishing aspect between simulations and metaphors. I will therefore introduce a notion of simulation and a notion of metaphor. Simulation Usually, a game that is based on real world issues or systems is called a simulation. However, some authors consider simulation a concept on one pole of a continuum, with metaphor on the other end of the same continuum (Crawford 2003, 29–31). The distinction of games as detailed, high-fidelity simulations versus games as abstract and low-fidelity metaphors is open to criticism, since simulations do not necessarily depend on a possibly complete and realistic model of the simulated phenomenon as I will show in this section. The most well-known definition of simulation in Game Studies has been created by Gonzalo Frasca. He writes: to simulate is to model a (source) system through a different system that maintains to somebody some of the behaviors of the original system (Frasca 2003, 223). This definition models simulation in three different parts: (a) the modeling or simulating system, (b) the modeled or simulated system, and (c) the observer who recognizes the connection between (a) and (b). This tripartite structure animated several scholars to connect it to Peirce’s tripartite sign structure and derive a semiotic model of simulation (Begy 2010, 29–30; Dormans 2011), according to that a simulation first starts being a simulation if it is observed and recognized by somebody as such. Contrary to common understanding, a simulating system is not a simulation due to the imitation of “audiovisual characteristics” of the modeled system alone (Frasca 2003, 223). Much more important for a modeling system to be identifiable as a simulation is its imitation of the “behavior” of the modeled system and its specific reaction to “certain stimuli (input data, pushing buttons, joystick movements) according to a set of conditions” (2003, 223). This means (a) needs to exemplify specific characteristics of (b) in terms of its behavior (not always audiovisually represented) to somebody. The philosopher of science Stephan Hartmann does not consider simulation as being necessarily dependent upon audiovisual representation. He suggests that “a simulation results when the equations of the underlying dynamic model are solved” (2005, 5). If the solution of the equations is enough to consider something a simulation, then every computer program can simulate something as long as the equations, variables and values can symbolically be related to some source system. Begy, who researched the metaphorical potential of abstract games, developed a concept for semiotically abstract simulation games that also distinguishes simulation from metaphor. According to Begy, an abstract simulation always communicates that it is a simulation to the player. Its source system, that is modeled by the rules and the game mechanics, is conveyed either through the audiovisual/fictional/semiotic layer of the game itself, and/or through paratexts such as its title, rulebooks, accompanying websites etc. (Begy 2010, 29). Apart from that, authorial intent is a very strong aspect of simulations for Begy. Consequently, simulation games can appear as abstract and unrecognizable as possible - as long as an author determines them to be a simulation, they are one. The same simulation can be a metaphor, according to Begy, only if an interpreter or player projects a different system onto it than the author intended. Slightly less radically, Jesper Juul counts fidelity, simplification and stylization as the main characteristics of a simulation (Juul 2005, 170). A simulation can have a higher or lower degree of fidelity towards the simulated (ibid.). As such, a tennis game can be simulated as simply as Pong (Atari 1972) or with a higher degree of fidelity, as with Virtua Tennis (Hitmaker 2000), that simulates not only the to-and-fro movement of a ball when being hit, but also different ways to hit the ball, such as a lob or a volley. In addition, Juul argues that “simplification and stylization are characteristics of most of the games with a fictional world” (Juul 2005, 170). Simplification brings games “closer to the world of concepts than to the minute details of the real world” (Juul 2005, 170). The simplification is coupled to stylization - or, in other words, the necessary reduction has a stylization as a result. “By removing detail from the source domain, the game focuses on a specific idea of what the game is about” (Juul 2005, 170). Thus, Juul comes to a temporary conclusion: “games are often stylized simulations, developed not just for fidelity to their source domain but for aesthetic purposes” (ibid.). Game love can be recognizably simulated, as in The Sims 3, where it retains audiovisual characteristics of symptoms that we – through cultural influence, of course – consider as indicating love. i However, these are merely audiovisual clues that a certain value of the relationship meter has been actualized. In other words, the surface signs of love depend on the underlying dynamic model of a love relationship. So, with Juul’s approach, The Sims 3 can certainly be classified as a more mimetic simulation because it has a higher degree of fidelity. The Marriage, on the other hand, rather seems to be a low fidelity simulation of a love relationship because of its very abstract semiotics as well as the few implementations of possible love relationship activities in the game mechanics. The initially introduced common distinction between games as either mimetic simulations or abstract metaphors might not work as also semiotically abstract games can count as simulations. Thus, The Marriage might in fact be a simulation of a love relationship. According to the analysis so far the question seems not to be if the abstract game The Marriage is a metaphor for love or a simulation of love. The question is rather: What does The Marriage simulate? Love related activities, an individual experience of love, or a metaphorically structured concept of love? The latter is my claim. Although Begy accepts that abstract simulations as well as non-abstract simulations can be interpreted metaphorically (as long as the projected source system is different from the originally implemented one) (Begy 2010), he fails, like Rusch, to analyze one of his main examples, The Marriage, in its relation to metaphor. Begy and Rusch draw on Humble’s description of the game but do not take into consideration that a culturally shaped understanding of a love relationship will most likely be metaphorically structured. However, this should have been a logical step in the analysis, given that Begy draws on the framework of metaphor proposed by Lakoff and Johnson, who assume that most of our experience, understanding and action is structured metaphorically (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 3). Instead, Begy would have had to acknowledge that the designer’s concept of love and marriage might be largely metaphorically structured, too. Thus, Begy and Rusch would have also had to assume that Humble’s reflection process on his marriage does not rely solely on his subjective experience with his own marriage or love relationship. Therefore, the interpretable concept of love or marriage in his game is in fact too generic. This also explains the rather stereotypical concept of love implemented in the game. I would argue that understanding game love in The Marriage as a simulation of a love relationship requires interpreting it from a metaphorical perspective. The Marriage is not only a simulation of an individual experience of love, but also a simulation of a metaphorically structured concept of love. In other words a metaphorical interpretation of the simulation is possible because the designer and the player/interpreter draw on the same kind of metaphorically structured concept of love. In order to understand this claim I will briefly introduce the cognitive linguistic view of metaphor. Metaphor The “cognitive linguistic view of metaphor” (Kövecses 2010, x) was established by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson and is the most prominent contemporary theory of metaphor. According to Lakoff and Johnson, “the essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another” (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 5; italics in original). For instance, if we say to “shoot a goal” we understand FOOTBALL in terms of WAR.ii Lakoff and Johnson consider metaphor firstly not as a property of words but of concepts. Therefore, metaphor can also be found in media other than language (cf. Forceville and Urios- Aparisi 2009). Secondly, metaphor is not only mere decoration of speech; it structures our actions, experiences and understanding in everyday life (Kövecses 2010, x). Most of our understanding of the world is structured through metaphorical concepts. The metaphor works because the two concepts associated in a metaphor either share a similarity, if the metaphor is sufficiently conventionalized, or a similarity is created through metaphor if the metaphorically associated concepts seem incongruous at first sight. This is often the case with so-called creative metaphors. Central to Lakoff and Johnson's theory is the conceptual metaphor. That means one conceptual domain is understood “in terms of another conceptual domain” (ibid., 4). These two domains are called the source domain and the target domain of meaning. Many metaphorical linguistic expressions are not only singularities but belong to a metaphorical framework of the two conceptual domains and thus to a larger more or less coherent body of metaphors. LOVE1 (target domain) is, especially in Western cultures, very often verbalized in terms of a JOURNEY (source domain) (Lakoff and Johnson 1999, 66). The respective conceptual metaphor is LOVE IS A JOURNEY (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 44–45; Kövecses 1986, 6–9; Lakoff and Johnson 1999, 63–69). The empirical evidence of conceptual metaphors is derived from “metaphorical linguistic expressions” (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 7). In the case of the just-mentioned metaphor we say phrases like “Look how far we’ve come. It’s been a long, bumpy road. We can’t turn back now. We’re at a crossroads. We’re heading in different directions. The marriage is out of gas” (all examples from Lakoff and Johnson 1999, 64). The conceptual metaphor is coherent as we understand the lovers as travelers, the relationship becomes a vehicle and difficulties become hindrances to motion (Lakoff and Johnson 1999, 64). Turning back now to the relation between simulation and metaphor in the case of The Marriage, we can say that love metaphors provide us with a cognitive model (Kövecses 2003, 127) of love that is simulated by the game. This is where metaphors of love and simulation meet, and why the simulation The Marriage needs to be understood as being based on the cognitive model of LOVE. Let us remember: Juul said simplification brings games “closer to the world of concepts” (Juul 2005, 170). This means that the simulating is based on an abstract concept of the simulated. 1 It is an accepted convention in cognitive linguistics to indicate conceptual metaphors (and the respective source and target domains) with small capital letters in order to distinguish them from linguistic metaphors. I will stick to this convention in this article. This might only be half of the truth. I would even argue that the simulated itself is already a concept and that is why the simulating can only be conceptual, too. In the following section I will introduce the metaphorical structuring of love in everyday use, before finally analyzing and demonstrating how The Marriage is based on those metaphors. Metaphorical structuring of love in everyday language Zoltán Kövecses, a Hungarian cognitive linguist “working on the language and conceptualization of emotion,” observes that “emotion concepts such as anger, fear, love, happiness, sadness, shame, pride, and so on are primarily understood by means of conceptual metaphors” (Kövecses 2010, 23). Among those, “love is the most highly ‘metaphorized’ emotion concept” (Kövecses 2003, 27). Thus, there are plenty of examples that together constitute the conceptual system of love. Furthermore, human relationships such as friendship, love, and marriage are another target domain commonly metaphorically structured by different source domains. From everyday language use one can derive a huge number of conceptual metaphors that have LOVE as a target domain; among those are LOVE IS A UNITY (OF TWO COMPLEMENTARY PARTS), LOVE IS CLOSENESS, LOVE IS A BOND, LOVE IS A FLUID IN A CONTAINER, LOVE IS PHYSICAL FORCE, LOVE IS WAR and LOVE IS A GAME (Kövecses 2003, 26). According to the cognitive linguistic view of metaphor these structural metaphors are a convincing indication that our general understanding of love is structured by them. The necessary evidence is provided by common linguistic expressions like “we are as one” (LOVE IS A UNITY), “they are very close” (LOVE IS CLOSENESS), “I was magnetically drawn to her” (LOVE IS PHYSICAL FORCE) and so forth (ibid.). One might ask why I am talking about LOVE metaphors if the game to be analyzed is called The Marriage. Would it not make more sense to speak of MARRIAGE metaphors instead? Not necessarily! At least in North America, according to some empirical evidence, “marriage is in many ways structured by our understanding of love” (Kövecses 2003, 120). As subordinated to RELATIONSHIP LOVE and MARRIAGE are concepts, metaphors from both realms can be taken into consideration. This becomes apparent in the case of the so-called UNITY metaphor that works as both LOVE IS A UNITY and A MARRIAGE IS A UNITY. Kövecses identifies LOVE IS A UNITY (OF TWO COMPLEMENTARY PARTS) as the central metaphor in the systematic framework of metaphors of LOVE (Kövecses 1986, 62–67). He is here in line with those philosophies of love that focus on a conceptualization of love as a union (cf. Helm 2009). The metaphor is supported by expressions such as “We are one. She is my better half. Theirs is a perfect match. We function as a unit. They are inseparable” (all examples from Kövecses 1986, 62). The UNITY metaphor makes us see analogies “between certain love experiences and the unity of two complementary physical, chemical etc. parts” (Kövecses 1986, 63). According to Kövecses the UNITY metaphor implies a specific understanding of love in terms of “an ideal unity in that the two parts maximally complement each other” (Kövecses 1986, 63). It can also be understood as a symbiotic union in that one part cannot exist without the other, so that one lover is only experienced as one half in a relationship (Kövecses 1986, 63). Since we primarily conceptualize love with these metaphorical expressions, they usually seem rather ordinary and therefore not metaphorical to us. Strongly related to this concept of UNITY is the idea of PHYSICAL CLOSENESS that is often even literally the case with people who are in love. Love and physical closeness are causally related. That is why expressions framing love in terms of closeness often are also metonyms. Typical structures for metonymies in cognitive metaphor theory are rhetoricians” call this specific structure a synecdoche), EVENT etc. THE PART FOR THE WHOLE (“traditional PRODUCER FOR PRODUCT, CAUSE FOR THE (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 35–40). Kövecses even believes that typical behaviors related to a specific emotion are the basis for the central metaphor of an emotion. In the case of love, this is physical closeness. Consequently, this PHYSICAL CLOSENESS is part of the metonymy as well as the metaphor. In the metonymy, closeness is literally the case, but being in love can also mean that one is metaphorically close - for example, by thinking of each other even though one is physically separated as in a long-distance relationship (Kövecses 1986, 65–66). Certainly the concept of love consists of many more metaphors and metonymies. Given the limited space for this chapter, more metaphors can be found in Kövecses (1986; 1988; 2003; 2010). To sum up, the Western model of love consists of the presented metaphors and can be seen as the basis for the simulation in question. I will now in analyze in detail how The Marriage applies love metaphors in its simulation. Analysis of The Marriage according to conceptual metaphors of love To better distinguish the steps of analysis I will regard the semiotics of the game, the mechanics and the gameplay according to Aarseth’s ontological layers of a game (2011, 59–61; Aarseth 1997, 40). I will also examine the dynamic aspect the game according to Hunicke et.al.’s MDA framework (mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics; (Hunicke, LeBlanc, and Zubek 2004)). Love in the semiotic layer of The Marriage The semiotic layer of a game “informs the player about the game world and the game state through visual, auditory, textual and sometimes haptic feedback” (Aarseth 2011, 60). Considering Juul, the fictional (or semiotic) layer is as important as its rules (or its mechanical layer) in order to understand what a game simulates (2005, 170–173). In this section I will primarily analyze the visual elements of The Marriage, that inform the player about the game state and the state of the respective love relationship at play. When opening the game an inserted title in the center says “The marriage” together with the name “Rod Humble” and the year “2006” in the lower right corner. A mouse-over makes the title fade out, while the two blue and pink squares fade in simultaneously. For a second they embrace the title as if they were poles of a line segment (see figure 13.3). This title symbolizes the relationship of the two central game tokens not only by its meaning but also by being a visible object connecting the two. Furthermore, it exemplifies the metaphor LOVE IS A BOND present in expressions like “there is a close tie between them” (Kövecses 2003, 26). From the title’s meaning and from the visual choreography of the title and the game tokens, one can guess that what happens in this game is something about a love relationship. As soon as the title fades out, the two squares move towards each other like they were magnetically drawn. This all happens before the player can exert any influence on the game. The central conceptual metaphor LOVE IS A UNITY OF PARTS is exemplified by the two main game objects. The pink and the blue square are PARTS of the conceptual metaphor. The playing field that contains all game elements and in that the game action takes place constitutes the UNITY of the PARTS as it circumscribes the important parts in question. The game as a whole is a unity that consists not only of the two complementary parts, but also implies that the circles symbolize events. Focusing on the squares, one can differentiate between the initial game state, when the squares are still relatively small, and a later game state, a result of successful play. In the former case, the game space leaves a lot of space to move around. In the latter case, the squares have become so big that they almost fill the whole game space. This is another way to see the UNITY metaphor realized in the game. Although some kind of unity is already initially established, a convincing unity in terms of a successful marriage seems only to be the result of successful play: when both squares fill the whole game space, even the negative events, symbolized by black circles, do not significantly shrink the squares. They immediately grow again - as soon as they collide with each other in the case of the pink square, or with a positive event, symbolized by a green circle, in the case of the blue square. Another game state to be described exemplifies the conceptual metaphor CLOSENESS. LOVE IS When the squares are big enough, they are automatically close to each other. This is contrasted to the initial game state. The squares are so small that they can easily be quite distanced from each other in the game space. As we will see, CLOSENESS plays an important part in the mechanics and the dynamics of the game, too, since the player’s main task is to trigger closeness between the tokens time and time again. The free movement of the game objects in the game space, that is only controlled by the physical laws of the game, and their dynamically varying size according to the game state and player input, exemplify the conceptual metaphor LOVE IS FLUID IN A CONTAINER. concept that Kövecses analyzes, this metaphor is closely related to the concept of In the LOVE INTENSITY, that “is often expressed by the amount of substance in a container” (Kövecses 1986, 82). The intensity of the love relationship in The Marriage is depicted by the size of the squares relative to the container. Thus, a “big love” is exemplified as soon as both squares fill a large amount of the game space. However, one can interpret the relationship only as intense if both squares are equally big; otherwise it needs to be interpreted as Humble does on his website: The size of each square represents the amount of space that person is taking up within the marriage. So for example we often say that one person’s ego is dominating a marriage or perhaps a large personality. In the game this would be one square being so large that the other one simply is trapped within the space of it... (Humble 2009). Juul argues that “The Marriage […] has a 2D allegorical representation of a relationship – a spatial representation of something non-spatial” (Juul 2007, 513). However, as we can see in Humble’s quote, and in the metaphors discussed so far, the conception of Most of the presented concepts - like LOVE is largely spatial. JOURNEY, UNITY, CLOSENESS, FLUID IN CONTAINER, and PHYSICAL FORCE - imply a spatial structuring of LOVE. Since The Marriage can be considered as a dynamic spatial configuration of objects, it is predestined to simulate a concept of love in terms of space. Love in the mechanical layer of The Marriage In order to hold up the hypothesis that game love in The Marriage is the simulation of our metaphorically structured understanding of love, one needs to identify aspects of behavior or dynamics and show if and how these appear in the game as well. A simulation does not only consist of its visual representation, but also of its rules (Juul 2005, 170) or/and its mechanics (Aarseth 2011, 61). As we have seen from the perspective of philosophy of science, a simulation does not even necessarily need a representation, as it primarily consists of the solving of “equations of the underlying dynamic model” (Hartmann 2005, 5). According to Aarseth, “the mechanical layer of a game object (its game mechanics) is the engine that drives the game action, allows the players to make their moves, and changes the game state” (Aarseth 2011, 60). For Aarseth, the mechanical layer has a primacy over the semiotic layer as it determines what can be done, seen, interpreted etc. on the semiotic layer. Furthermore, he uses the notions of simulation and mechanics almost synonymously (Aarseth 2004, 52). Significant parts of the mechanics in The Marriage are the manipulateable game tokens through that the player influences the game state. Let me identify the mechanics of the following activity: mousing over one square (a game token) in The Marriage makes both squares move towards each other. In this case the mechanics consist of the rule “if player mouses over one of the squares, then both squares will move towards each other and eventually collide.” From wherever the squares are, at the moment when the cursor passes over one of them, they will move towards each other and thus change their position in the game space. The collision leads to the next change of the game state. It makes the pink square grow and thereby partly ensures the continuation of the game. This mechanic can be called a “core mechanic”, that is “the essential play activity players perform again and again in a game” (Salen and Zimmerman 2004, 316). Clearly, it is not the only mechanic of the game, but it is certainly a very important one, as this is the only way that an external input can influence the system. Moreover, this core mechanic is based on the conceptual metaphor LOVE IS PHYSICAL FORCE, that Kövecses derives from linguistic expressions such as “I was magnetically drawn to her” (Kövecses 2003, 26). In a common love relationship, it is necessary to produce metaphorical as well as metonymical CLOSENESS every now and then to keep the relationship going. On the one hand one can see that the PHYSICAL FORCE metaphor supports the LOVE IS CLOSENESS metaphor. On the other hand, conceptualizing love as a physical force accounts for the player’s special role in the game. Instead of playing one of the partners the player plays the role of love itself – the player is executing the force that draws the partners togetheriii. The same mechanic can also be interpreted as an actualization of the LOVE IS A JOURNEY metaphor (see above). This metaphor conceptualizes aspects of “the progress and the purposes of the love relationship” (Kövecses 1986, 6). In particular, the linguistic expression “we are moving towards each other” is supported by this mechanic, and it can again be meant metonymically and metaphorically. Metonymically this is the case when referring to the actual position of the lovers in physical space in that one establishes proximity every now and then, and metaphorically if “one approaches each other” ideally, emotionally etc. On this background it seems only logical to implement a mechanic that makes two central game tokens collide once every now and then in a simulation of a love relationship. However, the mechanics usually make the squares move apart from each other right after they have collided. This embodies the metaphoric expression “going our separate ways.” However, whereas this expression usually describes the separation of a couple, in The Marriage this has different meanings. Certainly, in case the squares have not collided in a while, the game/marriage will end (for the pink square). The blue square needs to collide with the mostly green colored circles. This cannot be initiated actively by the player, she needs to let the blue square move on its own and thereby increase the chance that it will collide with the floating colored circles. Love in the dynamics of The Marriage As Treanor et.al. write, it is difficult, if not impossible, to derive meaning (the source system of a simulation) from interpreting mechanics alone (Treanor et al. 2011, 118). As one could see when trying to describe the mechanics of the game, one necessarily speaks about them in the context of other mechanics and their interplay and regards them altogether rather as a “gestalt” (as in e.g. Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 81) that consists of several distinct elements but is perceived as a whole. While the mechanics consist of the strict rules that determine the behavior of individual game elements as reactions to player input and game state changes, and hence describe the characteristics of the simulation as an object, dynamics describe the processual characteristics of a game that emerge from the given mechanics when the simulation is at play. The dynamics are “the run-time behavior of the mechanics acting on player inputs and each others’ outputs over time” (Hunicke, LeBlanc, and Zubek 2004 in Treanor et al. 2011). The distinction between mechanics and dynamics is analogous to the distinction of games as either objects or processes (Aarseth 2001; also in Calleja 2011, 9–11; Malaby 2007). Thus, the dynamics are that that becomes perceivable when the game is at play. Play testing is the necessary consequence, given that we do not know how the dynamics of a game will play out just from knowing its mechanics. When Hartmann says “a simulation imitates one process by another process” (2005, 5) the dynamics are the layer of The Marriage on that the processes of a love relationship are primarily experienced by the user. According to some philosophers of love, such as Robert C. Solomon (Solomon 2001 in Helm 2009), love is the constant “‘tension’ between union and autonomy” (Helm 2009); i.e. being in love does not only mean to become one with the partner but also to preserve one’s own identity. This is also known as the so called “paradox of love” (Solomon 2001, 64 in Helm 2009). Interestingly, Solomon chooses “an [admittedly] unromantic analogy” (metaphor/model) from the realm of chemistry to illustrate his “paradox of love”, that consists of “the fusion of two independent atoms to form a molecule. The atoms retain their identity as atoms of a certain element but, at the same time, they altogether form a new substance with quite different properties” (Solomon 2001, 65). As we have seen this analogy is not only the experiential basis of Kövecses’ LOVE IS A UNITY OF COMPLEMENTARY PARTS, but he even uses the same chemistry analogy to ground this metaphor in. In this respect, the dynamics of The Marriage can also be seen as a simulation of the LOVE IS A UNITY OF COMPLEMENTARY PARTS metaphor and as being based on those love theories (as e.g. Solomon 2001) whose common focal point is considering “love as union” (Helm 2009). This metaphor is represented in the two different but significant gameplay conditions (for the concept of the gameplay condition see Leino 2010, 134) that have to be met to keep the relationship going in The Marriage, and that result in specific dynamics emerging during play. Firstly, the player will need to make both the squares collide every now and then in order to satisfy the “needs” (Rusch 2009) of the pink square. Secondly, she has to let the blue square roam a bit to make it collide with colored circles (while avoiding black ones) and to satisfy its needs. Consequently, the player will most likely play a game of closeness and distance whose degree of difficulty depends on the current game state and the skill of the player. As such, the player must take care that the distance between the squares does not get too large, especially when they are comparatively small. It can happen that it takes the pieces too long to travel all the way to each other, so that they fade completely on the way (to see this happening bears a certain tragedy). Triggering CLOSENESS is simpler if the squares have already reached a reasonable size and fill huge parts of the playing field. From the perspective of visualistics (Bildwissenschaft), that regards computer games as “interactive pictures” (Günzel 2008, 170), one could argue that the player’s main activity in playing computer games is the production of specific images. Some of them are favorable, others are unfavorable. This regard favors the visual primacy in computer gameplay (criticized by Kirkpatrick 2011) that is an a priori to interact with the game. Thus, during gameplay in The Marriage, the player basically produces images that exemplify metaphors structuring our understanding of love meaning that, as a result of the dynamics of the game, the player generates images of CLOSENESS and DISTANCE according to the two significant gameplay conditions. The LOVE IS A GAME metaphor With the dynamics of the last section in mind we, finally, have to take into account perhaps the most obvious metaphor enacted by The Marriage (Kövecses 1986, 105; Kövecses 1988, 74; Kövecses 2003, 26; Kövecses 2010, 15). The LOVE IS A GAME metaphor consists of expressions like “he made a play for her” (Kövecses 2003, 26) or “[he] plays hard to get” (Kövecses 1986, 105). Clearly LOVE is here the target domain and GAME the source domain. Although these metaphors seem to stem rather from a more performance-oriented concept of play in terms of theater, they also can be seen in terms of a more game-related notion of play. One can, for instance, play (in terms of acting/pretending) hard to get for somebody who apparently shows more openly his emotional attachment, although one is as interested. However, one can also “play with somebody’s feelings” in the case that one is not so interested but wants to see how far one can go. One does so, for instance, when pretending on one day to be emotionally very interested in the other person and on the other day behaving very reservedly and coldly. This kind of play is finally nothing else but the play of closeness and distance that is part of the central LOVE IS CLOSENESS metaphor. This coincides with Gadamer’s notion of play as a “to-and-fro movement” that “has no goal that brings it to an end; rather, it renews itself in constant repetition” (Gadamer 2004, 104). Certainly, Gadamer as a German native speaker does not make the distinction between game and play, as English speakers do, so we can assume that the characteristics of his notion of play also count for our notion of game. However, following Gadamer, one could even say that LOVE IS A GAME is no metaphor at all. According to Gadamer, play is medial (Gadamer 2004, 104), meaning it always needs something else to come into existence. So a love relationship would then be just one option among many for play to come into existence. Another property PLAY and LOVE share, and that supports the LOVE IS A GAME metaphor is that games as well as relationships can be and are sometimes thought of as cybernetic systems (cf. e.g. Salen and Zimmerman 2004, 212–228; Hunicke, LeBlanc, and Zubek 2004) whose behavior is determined by some kind of optimal value. If the system is in a state where the optimal value is reached, one could call it being balanced or stable. This is a system with a negative feedback loop. If it is not balanced, system dynamics come into play to balance it again and try to keep it stable. Although this is a very technical metaphor to describe love, one can imagine a love relationship as a negative feedback system that appears to be very stable and balanced; however, a love relationship with a positive feedback system is also thinkable, this being one in that one system state is getting ever more amplified until an extreme is reached when the system explodes or collapses. Last but not least, love and games share an analogy in the notion of caring “that is so essential to love” (Solomon 2001, 47). According to Johan Huizinga, the English verb “play” and the German verb “pflegen” (“to care” in English) “are not only formally but semantically identical” (Huizinga 1998, 40), meaning, they have the same etymological root. Additionally, he remarks that you can “pflegen” “love […] and […] even ‘play’” (1998, 39). So, when being in love we care about the other and our love relationship. Being a player of a game we care about our game and try to play it in a specific way. In a love relationship as well as in a game “something is at stake” (1998, 40). In this respect the LOVE IS A GAME metaphor makes a love relationship appear like a game in that the well-being of the game is at stake, the to-and-fro movement as well as the balance of the system. However, whereas the LOVE IS A GAME metaphor usually has a slightly negative connotation, as in “playing with somebody’s feelings”, one could also say that the game seen in the light of the notion of caring makes also the LOVE IS A GAME metaphor appear much more positive. Through playing the game, the player nourishes a metaphorical consequence from the LOVE IS A GAME metaphor that is the enactment of the metaphor MAINTAINING THE GAME IS MAINTAINING THE LOVE RELATIONSHIP. Conclusion The relation between The Marriage’s title and its mechanics, semiotics, and dynamics is not arbitrary, since the game exemplifies significant elements with the metaphorically structured concept of love. The interpretation of the simulation by connecting the designed system to one’s own subjective idea of the source system must hence be possible not only because one can relate moving squares and circles to one’s own experiences of the same domain, but because the designer as well as the player draw most likely to some degree on the same basic metaphorical structuring and understanding of love. Furthermore, this example of game love shows that the commonly-made opposition between mimetic simulations and abstract metaphors with regard to games gets into trouble when it comes to acknowledging the existence of “abstract” simulations and when considering the level of abstraction of the system the simulation is based on. In this sense, the simulation of a love relationship based on the respective metaphors appears more concrete than abstract. However, as interesting as this sounds, this is not the final conclusion. One needs to imagine the direction of reference of The Marriage to a love relationship in the following way. Love relationships are an existing phenomenon in the world. Members of a culture make sense of it and communicate about it in terms of metaphors and metonymies that shape their understanding of the phenomenon in question. These metaphors naturally highlight some aspects of the phenomenon and hide others (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 10), thus they provide an abstracted and incomplete model of this phenomenon. The simulation of this metaphorical understanding, finishing this chain of reference, is again a reduction of the metaphorical system, as it does not include all metaphors that are used to conceptualize love. Acknowledgements I would like to thank Florian Berger, Mark Nelson and Daniel Vella for providing valuable comments in numerous discussions on the topic and during the proofreading process of this chapter. References Aarseth, Espen. 1997. Cybertext. 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Apart from sex the player has plenty of other lover relationship options to choose from. She can flirt with the beloved, she can give her/him presents, she can take her/him out for dinner and so on. ii In cognitive linguistics it is common practice to write concepts and conceptual metaphors in small capitals in order to distinguish these from linguistic metaphorical expressions. I will stick to this practice for the same reason. iii I thank my colleague, Daniel Vella, who kindly expressed this thought to me, that had only been implicit in my own understanding so far.