marriage
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Rock Band rekindles relationship
The tale of a spouse who pays more attention to a hobby than a significant other is an old one. Just what that hobby is has changed over the years. Be it watching sports, spending too much time at the office, or playing too many video games, it's a tale as old as time. It's amazing then, that in Rachel Shukert's case, video games actually saved a marriage. The particular game in question is Rock Band, which pulled her husband away from solitary first person shooters and brought the two together on the rise to virtual stardom. It's really a touching story with a sound moral: all marital problems can be solved with Rock Band. Just try not to fight over who gets to play which instrument.[Via Joystiq]
Rock Band saves marriage
Call us sappy saps, but we can't get enough of video game success stories -- failing relationships resurrected through the power of gaming. Okay, so it doesn't really happen that often, but when it does it melts our cold, robotic blogging hearts.Over at Salon, Rachel Shukert explains how Harmonix's Rock Band allowed her to relate to her husband's video game obsession, rekindle her lost desire for rock stardom, and quite literally save their marriage. It's a short story about the best kind of escapism -- the kind you share with someone else -- and it doesn't hurt that it's about one of our own favorite obsessions. We wonder what else Rock Band can save.[Thanks, Justin M.]
Wedding cake toppers reflect our high-tech, loveless reality
"Dude, I totally just got married! No, I'm serious -- can't you hear the organ playing?"[Via textually.org and geeksugar]
Viva Pinata proposer tying the knot today with game-themed cake
We all had our hearts warmed last year when we heard of David Rosowski's delightful approach to nuptial queries -- the young man proposed to his girlfriend Jenn by sending her a diamond and question-popping note in Viva Piñata, immediately following up with a bended knee and a real-life rock. Nearly seven months later, their wedding day has come, and after trading vows upon a cruise ship, the two will chow down on a matrimonial pastry topped with a Horstachio and a veiled Pretztail (two of the game's more recognizable papier-mâché critters). You can watch their big day unfold on David's YouTube channel, if you have nothing better to do this Saturday morning. We here at Joystiq HQ won't be in virtual attendance, but we'd still like to wish David and Jenn a long and happy marriage, full of fulfilled romance requirements and bushels of joy candy. [Thanks, jimmcq.]
Finding out your HKO Marriage Index
Hello Kitty Online features great opportunities to learn more about yourself and explore your personality through exciting online quizzes. You make a lot of choices as you go about your daily life, but did you know that your decisions can reflect your attitude and perspective towards love? Take some time to think about your favorite kind of shoes. Your choices are high-heeled/leather shoes, cloth shoes, track shoes, or slippers. Then answer the quiz question, it'll reveal a lot about your future! Find out what your choice in shoes means about when you're going to get married after the break. I always want to know more about myself, so I just had to take the quiz. %Poll-12028%
World of Kung Fu grants married characters double experience for combat
World of Kung Fu gets more and more interesting every time we hear about it. It recently went into open beta, then started up a new webcomic, and now they've just announced the ability for characters to marry! According to the press release, the engagement begins with matching rings, then a trip to the matchmaker. The actual wedding itself can be celebrated with decorations, guests, and fireworks, after which time each character receives a title identifying them as married.But wait, here's the best part: the 'Couple Cultivation Skill' lets couples receive double experience for team combat! There is probably more to it than we might glean on the surface, and we'll do our best to find out what that might be. WoKF is in open beta, kids. Check it out now![Thanks, Andrea!]
Homebrew Bejeweled game used to initiate marriage proposal
Although this is far from being the weirdest union (or proposal, for that matter) we've ever seen, Xanga user p3ng decided to throw tradition to the wind (at least momentarily) when proposing to his now-fiancée. Put simply, he built a custom version of Bejeweled (the lady's favorite game in the whole wide world) in which a pixelated engagement ring scrolled onto the screen once a certain score was hit. Needless to say, his awestruck girlfriend could barely contain her excitement as she uttered "yes," and we absolutely expect the Guitar Zeros to be the house band at the forthcoming reception.[Via DSFanboy]
Romantic gamer proposes with homebrewed Bejeweled
Proposing in MMOs like World of Warcraft and Second Life is played out, so what's a gamer to do when he wants to drop to one knee and still retain his nerd credibility? Well, how about homebrewing your honey's favorite game to pop the question? Xanga user Bernie did just that to propose to his girlfriend Tammy. Knowing that Bejeweled was her favorite game, Bernie spent a few weeks putting together a Nintendo DS version (completely from scratch, no less). Once the game hits a certain score, the screen clears and a ring made of the game's jewel sprites lowers on the screen. When his girlfriend played the game and arrived at the special screen, Bernie was ready with real ring in hand. Proposal by casual game is certainly a first, so congrats to Bernie and Tammy both for getting engaged, and for setting a new precedent in nerd love.
Man proposes using homebrew Bejeweled
Hey, casual games don't have to be cynical exercises in making loadsamoney. In fact, our inner romantic dork almost swooned after recently reading the tale of Bernie and Tammy, who tied the knot thanks to the mother of all casual titles: Bejeweled.Okay, so strictly speaking, it wasn't the Bejeweled, but a DS homebrew version of Popcap's wildly popular creation, as developed from scratch by Bernie. The game is a favorite of his partner Tammy, so the young Casanova wrote her a special version, and gave it her to play.The reason why Bernie's Bejeweled was special? Well, when Tammy reached a certain score, the screen cleared and a ring scrolled down in its place. Apparently, it was at this point that Bernie got down on one knee and popped the question. A no doubt thrilled Tammy said "yes." Awwww.Congrats, you two! We're off to buy new hats![Via Game|Life]
iPhone marriage proposal warms even the cynical heart
Maybe we just turn a bit sentimental during the holiday season, but damn it, we'll admit to getting a little choked up over reader Claude M's well-planned, uber-geeky proposal to his girlfriend -- even if his method of choice did happen to employ the totally overexposed iPhone. Being the romantic fellow that he is, Claude spent what must have been numerous hours producing a video proposal in the style of those ubiquitous commercials -- as you can see after the break -- and then screened it for his sweetheart (probably on his or her you-know-what) while they were strolling around the area where they'd first met in college. We'd like to congratulate the happy couple -- she said yes, duh -- and encourage them to race over to our Christmas contest post, where they have decent odds of scoring a pair of round trip tickets for the honeymoon.
A formal pronouncement of (ingame) marriage
Rezist has an interesting idea on the forums. We've already seen lots of ingame marriages happen, just for fun, but what if the marriage process ingame was formalized? Right now, you can buy a tux and a dress and pretend to get married, but what if the tabard vendor also sold a marriage license, so that you could formally connect two characters in marriage? Of course, it would have to actually mean something-- maybe the two characters could share a bank, or even get some kind of combat bonus when they were grouped up or near each other. With a Valentine's Day patch coming up in a few months, it might be a fun twist to put in there.On the other hand, marriage itself brings up its own set of problems. Would marriage between people of the same sex be OK? Odds are that's a bomb that Blizzard doesn't want to deal with. And how would divorce work? A formalized ingame marriage could be as messy as marriage in real life if not dealt with properly.Later in the thread, Nethaera shows up to turn the conversation from RPing in general, and I agree with her-- we're already playing characters here, and there's nothing wrong with doing something cute like this to let two people playing the game show a little affection for one another. But unfortunately, odds are that this is a little too messy an issue for Blizzard to put much work into.
Sex with Massachusetts Robots by 2050 -- wicked!
Having read the title above, we ask you: how do you feel? Titillated at the prospect or fearful for the little babies? Either way, if artificial intelligence researcher David Levy of the University of Maastricht is to be believed, we'll be consummating relationships with our anatomically correct Roombas by mid-century. Ironically, even though the city of Maastricht sits in free-livin' Netherlands, Levy predicts that Massachusetts will be first to legalize human-robot marriage due to its liberal attitude toward same-sex marriages. He envisions those early man-machine marriages falling victim to the same cultural taboos affecting interracial marriages. However, just as those are accepted over time, so will committed robot-hookups be seen as "normal" as the practice becomes more common. According to Levy, "once you have a story like 'I had sex with a robot, and it was great!' appear someplace like Cosmo magazine, I'd expect many people to jump on the bandwagon." Hear that Digg users? The cure to nerdonic-celibacy is all up to you.[Via TG Daily]
Euri's multimedia ring box -- for nerds who want wives
We'd highly recommend spending a bit more time (and money) on the actual ring rather than the box it comes in, but for those looking to wow your tech-savvy fiancée even more when popping the question, take a look at Euri's multimedia ring box. This ring holder sports a two-inch LCD internally, along with a clock, calender and alarm, and is available in a number of hues. There's even an unspecified amount of internal storage included, and you can upload your favorite pre-engagement photos via USB and have them displayed on the big day. Granted, this snazzy box is $198.95, but you only get one shot (well, usually) to get a "yes."[Via EverythingUSB]
Blizzard designer's gamer wedding
How to incorporate gaming into your wedding and still keep it tasteful? It's a question many young men and women are dealing with nowadays. So, until we get The Tasteful Gamer's Wedding by Martha Stewart, we're just going to have to keep figuring it out on our own. This is how Cory Stockton, lead level designer at Blizzard, worked gaming into his wedding: Super Mario Bros. wedding cake. (So. Cal. designer Erica O'Brien) Legend of Zelda ice sculpture/vodka luge (So. Cal. Union Ice). The sculpture doubled as a vodka luge for martinis and shots at the wedding. If you look close at the images in the gallery you can see the channel flowing diagonal down the center of the sword/shield for the alcohol. Tables were all named after video game consoles. The head table was called "Press Start to Begin." There were 23 tables from the NES and NeoGeo, to the Xbox 360. The grand entrance music was The Legend of Zelda's overworld theme and the wedding party's music was the Super Mario Bros. World 1-1 theme. His wife Christi was "100% ok" with those elements, but Stockton says it's mostly because it was his only real involvement with the wedding. He says the guests were happy with the elements as well and they received tons of compliments on the cake and sculpture. For the tables named after consoles Stockton says, "I actually tried to sit people at table names that matched up too. For instance we had the grandparents at the NES table and all the kids at the Wii table. I will say, the Virtual Boy table was not all that popular." More images can be found in the gallery below. Congrats to the couple.%Gallery-8135%
Viva Pinata marks its first wedding proposal
Niagara Falls? For suckers. Having a plane write it in the sky? Boring. On the Jumbotron at a World Series of Video Games event? Sadly impossible. There's officially only one cool way now to propose to that special someone: Through Viva Piñata. Unfortunately, user PINATAcast on the official Viva Piñata forums just beat you to it. We've seen video games and matrimony tied up before obviously, but this has to be one of our favorite combos. In one sense, it's metaphorical, as marriage is really all about figuratively smashing your partner to bits and eating the delicious candy inside them. (Just kidding, sweetie!) Perhaps Rare Community Manager George Kelion said it better in an email to us: "It's not quite as extensive as a full-on WoW wedding, but personally we think it's a bit more romantic (less chance of a drunken dwarf brawl ruining the atmosphere, for one thing)." Good luck, you crazy piñata farming kids.
Getting married in a virtual realm
WorldofWar points us to this forum thread by Fabraz, in which he shows off a video of his WoW wedding. The video is all in German, but you can tell what's happening as two Night Elf druids stand together in Darnassus as onlookers kneel. They finish their vows, and then a party goes down, and gifts are even given.It's not the first time this sort of thing has been done, of course (that's another German vid, though-- are Germans more likely to do a virtual wedding?), but it is a strange little collision of our social gestures in the real world with the virtual one. Does it mean any less or more (in terms of social meaning-- of course it doesn't mean anything legally) when two people commit to each other in virtual space rather than physical space? We've seen funerals held for players before, and of course there's the famous Serenity Now incident, with my favorite music cues of any WoW video ever. It's interesting that it's these two rituals, perhaps our most important and symbolic, that have made it into Azeroth. I've never seen a virtual graduation, perhaps congratulating the recent class of 70s, but maybe that's the next big ritual to make the jump.As a player, it's not really my thing (I find social interactions like weddings and funerals much more meaningful in the real world, and would rather leave the virtual world for things like fighting dragons and melting faces), but there is obviously a draw for this kind of thing-- in almost every MMORPG, it pops up at one point or another. Do meaningful social rituals like this belong in the World of Warcraft, or are they just a waste of time?
Augmented reality relationship game plays with your emotions
If you couldn't quite make it to the last Wii marriage counseling session, there's still good news coming from Georgia Tech. Thanks to a group of engineering minds at the university, a new augmented reality game (dubbed AR Facade) is placing you in the center of a marital spat with nearly limitless options. The program apparently runs on a back-worn laptop and utilizes an oh-so-tacky head mountable display, and developers suggest that being placed in the midst of an "interactive drama" allows you to choose sides, attempt to mediate, and basically "define your own way to win" as you try to talk some sense into the flustered couple. Interestingly, there's even talk of bringing such games "onto mobile phones" and into the workplace, but it looks like they've got a bit of hardware trimming to do first.[Via The Raw Feed]
TiVo takes the cake at San Francisco wedding
Although we can't be certain if Andy and Tina Szeto attended a Wii marriage counseling session before tying the knot, the television crazed couple did invite a healthy helping of TiVo to join in their matrimonial celebration. Granted, they did stop short of rocking interactive wedding attire, but the two lovebirds did indeed have a pair of his and her TiVo cakes proudly perched beside the more traditional rendition, and to show its appreciation, TiVo actually donated a plethora of smiling plush dolls as party favors. Not to be sold short, the company also gave each member in attendance their own felt TiVo ears for maximum geekness all around, and created quite the marketing scene in the process. Hey, we've definitely seen worse cakes at a shindig before, so click on through for more pictures of the obsessive ceremony.
Nintendo's Wii: a marriage saver?
It's fairly obvious that using the Wii to keep yourself slim and trim is bound to put a smile on your SO's face, but a curious banner at a presumed church used Nintendo's console (and its token font, too) to hint at answers to a successful marriage. Of course, a couple interested in spending countless hours of quality time gaming away with each other are indeed more likely to find common ground, but for the uber-competitive type, gaming together could lead to more quibbles than friendly laughs. Nevertheless, it shouldn't be surprising that a religious institution would tap into mainstream culture in order to garner attention to its offerings, and hey, if you've got to go to counseling for only taking "Mii" into consideration, you may as well get your game on while you're at it.[Via NintendoWiiFanboy]
A not so fairytale wedding
Subscribers to Nintendo's mailing list received a classy invitation to Bowser and Peach's wedding early this morning. Posing for a photo to promote Super Paper Mario's release, the groom looks none too happy about the event. If the crossed arms and eye-contact avoidance aren't indication enough of his displeasure, then the literal and metaphorical distance between the couple gives it away.Years from now, the Koopa King will look back on his glory days of battling plumbers and racing karts, regretting that he ever gave into the princess' pressures, trapping himself in this loveless marriage. He'll sigh and wonder how old age crept up on him. After finishing his cigarette on the driveway -- Peach hates it when he smokes inside -- he'll saunter back into the house that's never felt like home, pushing the memories of what once was out of his mind.Head past the post break for the full invitation.
