Tech

A guy surprised his girlfriend by proposing to her with a homemade video game about their relationship

Nathan McAlone

2015-10-02T18:46:45Z

A Cincinnati man took a marriage proposal to the height of nerdy sweetness when he built a computer game for the express purpose of proposing to his girlfriend, Lauren Woodrick.

Austin Piech says the pair had been dating for a few years when he "realized that if I was going to spend the rest of my life with someone, there wasn't anyone better than her," according to his post on Reddit.

Lauren knew he'd been coding a homemade game for a few weeks, and Austin asked her to be the first one to test it out. But the game was actually a virtual tour of levels inspired by significant moments in their lives, like their first date.

And the whole time, a ring was hidden behind the computer.

guy proposes to girlfriend with video game

As Lauren played the last level, her character passed by little mariachis playing the same song Austin's grandfather played for his grandmother when he proposed.

Lauren giggled at this and then the screen spelled out: "It's dangerous to go alone. Take this!"

At that moment Austin said, "Will you marry me?"

She said yes and started that wonderful laugh-cry familiar to anyone who has just been overcome with emotion.

You can see the entire video game journey leading up to the proposal in the screenshots below — annotated by Austin himself — or scroll to the bottom to watch the full video.

The first thing she saw: "The ominous flash file," Austin says.

Level 1: "Our first time really getting to know each other had been at Bockfest (a street festival celebrating high gravity beer and also goats) in Cincinnati, OH. We had been friends-of-friends before."

"Anyone who lives in Cincinnati can tell you that our streets are so terrible it's like living in an actual platformer."

Level 2: "We had our first date at A Tavola in OTR."

"Every good platformer needs goombas to squash. Or goatbas. I'm sorry, I'll show myself out."

Level 3: "Lauren and I first road tripped to my home town of Munster, IN, for Dark Lord Day, a small festival celebrating a high gravity imperial beer. (Are you sensing a trend here?)"

"Lauren's goal here was to navigate the maze of a factory while avoiding enemies. I loaded some Anamanaguchi to play as the background music."

Level 4: "We had a wonderful few days in Portland about a year and a half into dating."

"When Lauren's oxygen ran low, the Sonic drowning music played. Also, yes, there are alligators in the Pacific Northwest."

Level 5: "Living close to Indy, we decided to hit up Gen Con on a Saturday when we had nothing to do. It was awesome!"

"The clumsy enemies in this level were capable of firing projectiles, making timing essential."

Level 6: "A final level to bring it all together."

"One of Lauren's favorite movies is My Neighbor Totoro, so I had an 8 Bit version of a song from the soundtrack playing here."

"After beating the final level, Lauren was taken to this screen."

"Little mariachis appeared on screen and "Nosotros" began to play. It's the song my grandfather used to serenade my grandmother when he proposed to her 60+ years ago."

"At the very end of the last level, an Austin avatar appeared."

LAPike/Imgur

"After this, I proposed."

"She said yes!"

Here's the full video of the proposal:

Video Games