She's Lost Controller: Joy Division's 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' inspires videogame
When routine bites hard and ambitions are low, many of us turn to video games to raise a smile. Developers Mighty Box Games have found inspiration for the latest browser-based title from an unlikely source – Joy Division’s classic track Love Will Tear Us Apart.
Will Love Tear Us Apart (which can be played for free by clicking here) was masterminded by Gordon Calleja, who saw each verse of the song as a different level in a game.
Much like the song, the game is about “coming to terms with the reality of an irreconcilable relationship,” according to Calleja, encouraging player to look “on the darker side of love: miscommunication, emotional impasse and the sadness of separation”.
“What guides this game is an ambition to frustrate, upset and sting the player into remembering the dark days preceding the death of a relationship…Solace may be found in the brief moment of lightness that comes over us when we come to terms with the reality of an irreconcilable relationship.”
The game’s black and white art style also seems to take its inspiration from another Joy Division work; the cover art to their album Unknown Pleasures.
Designed by Peter Saville, it’s a visual representation of the radio waves from pulsar CP 1919, a dying star.
