How “It Takes Two” Made Me A Better Husband
One of my fondest memories is playing Donkey Kong Country with my mom on my SNES. Fast forward 20 or so years and I’m still playing video games, but my co-op partner has changed from my mom to my wife. Ever the dedicated spouse, she attempts most games I throw her way, but unless the game stars a mustachioed plumber or anthropomorphic animals, she is not usually interested. That changed when I showed her the new exclusively co-op title from Hazelight Studios, It Takes Two.
The game centers around a husband-and-wife duo; Cody and May. Each player controls one-half of the couple as they attempt to regain control of their bodies after being magically transformed into homemade dolls by their young daughter. That premise is shockingly the most grounded part of the game. After a brief introduction to the movement mechanics, we were both given a fun new toy to play with. I got a set of three nails while my wife was given the head of a hammer. As we started working through increasingly difficult puzzles, I remained calm while trying to teach my wife how to overcome the challenges set before us instead of getting frustrated at her inability to instantly succeed. This was a first for me.
Before It Takes Two, I could not understand how she struggled with the simplest of video game tasks. Even using the right control stick to change the direction the camera was facing was a hurdle for her early on. However, after a few hours, something clicked. She was keeping up with me and even solving puzzles faster than me. That’s not to say that I am a video game puzzle master, but the challenges that It Takes Two presents weren’t anything I hadn’t seen before.
The aspect of It Takes Two that made the biggest difference for my wife was the ever-changing tools and powers we were handed every few hours. One moment we were in a woodshed fighting a killer vacuum with a hammer and nails and the next were helping an army of hyper-intelligent squirrels destroy a wasp nest with explosive nectar technology. As I said, it’s all crazy. But it never feels overwhelming to play. Not once did I ever get frustrated at my wife for not understanding a new concept because I was still figuring it out right alongside her. We faced every challenge in that game the same way we face the challenges of real life: together.
It Takes Two helped me become a better video game partner and a better husband. As silly as it might sound, playing this wacky video game with my wife helped me become a more patient man and that, in turn, made her want to play more games with me. Turns out the only thing preventing me from enjoying more video games with my wife was my own inability to respect her skill level and have enough patience to work with her instead of getting frustrated that she was struggling.
I was too stubborn to see that I was standing in the way of my own happiness, which is, ironically, the moral of the story in It Takes Two. Marriage is a balancing act and anyone who tells you, “a good marriage is always 50/50” is delusional. Sometimes you’re going to have to give 80 or even 90 percent of the effort and that’s ok. The beauty of marriage, a healthy one anyway, is that your partner should rise to the occasion when they need to be the one giving more than you. The beauty of It Takes Two is that every puzzle is a test of the player's ability to understand this balance.
Sometimes my job was to stay put and let my wife lead the way. Other times I had to take charge and hope that she could keep up. She always did. We helped each other overcome the game’s challenges instead of creating more of them outside of the game while we were playing it.
It Takes Two isn’t the first game to teach me a valuable life lesson and I know it won’t be the last. I feel as though I have unlocked a new ability that will aid me in the remainder of my life. In a way, marriage is the ultimate co-op game and I am incredibly lucky to have such a wonderful partner to share it with. It may have taken me a while to see it, but after playing It Takes Two, I know there is no video game that we can’t beat, so long as we face it together.