I Love You, but…

A theatrical role-playing performance game about abusive relationships between romantic couples.

Role: Game Designer; Collaborators: Yamiao Liu, Christine Fouron, William Jiang; 2020

Artist Statement

*Players must be made fully aware of the nature of the game and understand that they can stop the game or skip any topics that make them uncomfortable at any time.

We want to raise awareness of how abusive relationships can manifest themselves through actions, behaviors, tactics, and conversations. Abusive relationships might seem to be far away from daily life and sometimes we might think that we will not be in such relationships. However, patterns of abuse are actually quite common. In some cases, one might do something or say something that can be hurtful or toxic for their partner without even notice it. Thus, through this game, we implemented the mechanics of theatrical role-playing to lead players into such relationships and the mechanics of dice-rolling to emphasize the lack of agency or choice or “winning” in an abusive relationship. In addition, we designed the writings in a simple but elegant way to guide the players into role-playing while also give them enough space to improvise and expand on the given scenario. By making a game that demonstrates volatile and provocative topics while keeping it appropriate and insightful at the same time, we hope to provide participants with emotionally powerful experiences and the ability to recognize patterns of abuse and methods to safely leave a relationship that is already toxic.