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Stay In Love

2024

Stay In Love is a design experience that uses tennis as a metaphor for a relationship between lovers. Coded in html, css and javascript, it is a 2-player game that questions the dynamics of love and highlights the conscious choice of lovers to stay together.

'Love' in tennis terminology refers to a score of zero or nothing. It is said that the player who has a score of love is still playing for the love of the game, despite winning nothing.

Stay In Love takes on the layout of a common tennis court, but subverts the goal of the sport by focusing on the rally instead. Instead of scoring points, the goal is to rally on forever, staying at a score of love : love for as long as both parties can.

Turn on your sound! This game is not supported on mobile and tablet, only PC.


Try it here OR

Watch the runthrough

Design Choices

1. Black to Colour

The court starts off with a dark background devoid of colour. The first line "Love is intuitive, find your way around" prompts the 2 players to search for the keys to play the game (W and S, ↑ ↓ ). When the paddle first makes contact with the ball, the court starts to change colour, symbolising the beginning of love.

2. Court and background colours set at random

Court and background colours were randomised, all colours were possible except for white (courtline colour) and #DCFF80 (ball colour) which I exempted in the code. This was done so that the experience of love between the 2 players would be unique every time. The likelihood of 2 different experiences of love having the same combination of colours would be close to zero.

3. Heartbeat sound when the paddle hits the ball

Instead of a tennis "smack" sound when the paddle hits the ball, I replaced it with the sound of a heartbeat. The result is a slow, steady rhythm, showing that love is alive when both players reciprocate.

4. Tennis commentary at the bottom

For the first round of the match, lines of silent tennis commentary appear at the bottom. Some are statements about love, some are questions about the match. They prompt users to think about their interaction and the point of playing the game.

5. Applause when the game ends

The game cannot last forever, but players are applauded for the time and effort they spent trying to stay in love.



Credits

Music used is Song on the Beach by Arcade Fire.

Basic Pong Code by straker on Git.Hub was adapted for the game's mechanism.

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