It Takes Two (Of the Worst People In the World)

Too rambling to be a review, but at least I had fun.

“Hell is other people.” - Jean-Paul Sartre

This is the second part of my It Takes Two review. In the first part, I went on about the lack of family in video games and the danger of paying attention to critics. Now I'll talk about the actual game.

TL;DR: It's really good. Play it.

The Plot of It Takes Two

It Takes Two tells the story of an unhappily married couple and their child who wants to keep them together. The daughter casts a wizard spell on the parents, turning them into little yarn dolls, and each player plays one parent through a multitude of levels and minigames as they try to like each other again.

The characters are: Cody, the lazy, lumpen, whiny, stay-at-home, do-nothing father. May, the bitter, tense, overworked, perpetually angry and critical mother. And Rose, their glassy-eyed daughter, who Cody and May don't really care about.

As the parents fight their way through the crawl-space, attic, clock, and extra-planer wonderlands in their house, you will hear them whine, complain, and deliver constant passive-aggressive insults. Meanwhile, their daughter is out in the real world, staring at her parents’ lifeless bodies and slowly starving.

If you occasionally find yourself flinging one of the parents into a fire just to shut them up for a second, you will not be alone.

No detail was spared. All killer, no filler.

The Gameplay and Graphics of It Takes Two

All excellent. This is a really fun game.

The gameplay is infinitely varied. It skips from action to pvp games to puzzles to boss fights with blinding speed. The entire game changes every few minutes, and it's terrific. If you've played a decent indie game in the last five year, It Takes Two probably has you play a superior version of that game for 10 minutes.

The visuals are endlessly inventive and interesting. The clock and music levels were standouts for us, but it's pretty great everywhere. It is worth buying this game just to see what it’s like when a game's developers really pay attention and never miss a chance to give a bit extra. It's exhilarating.

I have a couple nitpicks, but why bother? I can't praise the gameplay and design enough. It's a blast.

But I'm more interested in the storytelling.

The Horrible Characters of It Takes Two

It Takes Two deserves great credit for trying to tell a human story, with human characters talking about human issues. I can't say whether they did a good or bad job. It's art. It won't hit everyone the right way.

I can't do better than this quote from Neil Gaiman: "Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong."

So here is how this story affected our little house.

I suggest setting a ground rule for play: You are only allowed to kill your partner once per play session. Otherwise, you get nowhere.

Opinions Follow

It Takes Two is about Cody and May's quest to escape from their narcissism prisons enough to realize that other humans exist in the world. I'm not really sure it ever happens. They just wander around in their crawlspace long enough to get horny, and the game calls it a win.

A lot of their journey to not instantly divorcing involves their realizing that maybe, in a long marriage, each participant should have a hobby. Which, I mean, duh, right?

At one point, Cody wanted to have a garden. But he gave it up because, as he whines to May, "You never supported meeeeee!" Oh, many were the obscenities we shouted at the simp that play session.

Anyway, at the end of the game, Cody and May have (kind of) reconciled and keep their weird daughter from going full Inside Out and taking the bus into the big city.

Props to them for trying. I give their marriage 18 more months, tops.

But this isn't really a criticism! May and Cody are horrible, yes, but they are believable-horrible! I've met those people. You probably have too. This may not be the reception the authors wanted, but they did succeed in creating believable characters who got a reaction from us.

We hope you enjoy the suffering of these passive-aggressive, self-involved whiners just as much as we did.

Scream all you want. Nobody can hear you when you’re tiny.

The Best Part of It Takes Two

So their weird daughter casts a magic spell on this horrible couple, making them into dolls. Thus the couple is trying to become humans again. They have a great idea for how to reverse the spell: Make their daughter cry and bathe in her tears.

This leads to the most infamous scene in the game, where you try to destroy the daughter's beloved stuff animal to make her cry. All while the stuffy is begging for its life.

It is simultaneously horrifying and hilarious, and it is one of the few times when the game really seems to understand what is going on with these characters. The two parents are self-involved to a ghastly degree, and the only time they can agree on anything is when their selfishness aligns.

(Just like they agree that they both need hobbies to disappear into. They have no trouble deciding that what they really need is to check out of reality more.)

It's great writing. It's really sharp and well-observed, and it isn't a cutscene. It happens while you actually play. Very well done.

So, of course, this is the bit that the college-debt casualties who write game reviews fixate on. Something that has edge to it has to be sanded down. Something this complex and difficult has to be erased.

Why try to take a risk when writing so that you can be picked at and shouted at by the world? This is why we can't have nice things.

When I do a Google Image Search for “Doomed marriage,” this was the first hit. I think I’d watch this show.

But About the Ending

One critical comment we did agree with was that the reconciliation of this couple wasn't believable. They are trying to stay together, which is a noble goal. However, this marriage seems pretty doomed.

Why?

At this point, I'm going into very personal stuff. Like, my own human observations, based on decades of being in marriages and around the marriages of others (failed and successful), about what the game gets wrong.

1. A major part of Cody and May's journey is thinking back on the early days when they were together. Like, we'll remember when we were all hot and frenzied with each other and that will carry over to today.

This doesn't work. The passion of an early relationship, while amazing and memorable, doesn't last. Ideally, it gets replaced with the warmth and companionship of navigating a family through the difficulties of life. Marriage inevitably becomes not just passion, but also business, and you can't go back. Don’t get me wrong. A long marriage is a thing of joy and comfort, but it will naturally evolve, and you have to accept that.

2. Cody and May's lack of caring about their daughter is kind of shocking. To them, their daughter is just this weight they carry, this perpetual annoyance they lug around when they aren't accumulating consumer goods. (MAN, but their house has a lot of crap in it.)

In the modern age, it is easy to fall into the trap of seeing children as burdens, as opposed to people to love who give your life added meaning. I have fallen into this trap myself. Seriously, we found the extent to which they could forget about what was happening to their kid kind of chilling.

3. A key part of fixing their marriage was Cody and May deciding to take up hobbies. And, honestly, yeah! Sure! It is a very good idea to have interests. It's OK to take a break and go off on your own sometimes. This was a good idea.

But when you get back from your hobby? You need to be BACK. When you are with your family, with your kid, be there. Don't always be drifting off.

Also. The grossest part of the whole game was when Cody blamed May for his quitting gardening, because she didn't support him or whatever. Dude, get it together! Parenting is awesome, but it's not for the faint of heart. Life is long, and it gets harder as it goes on. So grow a spine.

I'm sure plenty of people will disagree with all this philosophizing. So yell at me in the comments! It's ok ...

It Takes Two also has dozens of 1 on 1 games you can play against your partner. They can get pretty exciting!

... Because I Am Not Criticizing the Game!

It might sound like I'm dumping on the game here, but I don't see it that way. Yes, I disagree with it, but that's ok. It's writing. It's art. I don't have to agree with what they say.

They have said how they see the world. I said how I do. My words aren't for the makers of the game. Why would they be? The game is already done! They are no longer involved. You and I have the game now. What can we learn?

We can talk to each other and use each other as sounding boards so that we understand life better. That is what art is supposed to do!

One of the most toxic trends in art now is the idea that art should never challenge, that upsetting the viewer or giving offense is the greatest of crimes. Fellow indie devs have privately, harshly turned on me for saying this, but it is true. (Dear Indie Devs: For small communities of artists, rejecting freedom of expression is a seriously bad idea.)

Sometimes, you will come away from a work of art confused or upset. This is an unavoidable side-effect of humans communicating with other humans. It's also how learning happens. God knows, the world needs a lot more learning right now.

So I give It Takes Two a high recommendation. Play it with someone you love and a teenager to help with the hard parts. It'll make your marriage stronger! Or destroy it! One of the two.

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Whew! What a ride. Lotsa words. If you want to pick my work apart, we wrote a game called Queen’s Wish that has a lot of family stuff in it. It’s pretty good. Also, free blog subscriptions!