It's the kind of awesome power that only a child would apply in such a modest manner - creating pathways through the city where there were none in order to win a game of chase. Move a discarded box two feet to the left and the building in front of you might just move in kind. Arcane symbols chalked on walls conjure staircases where there were none at the touch of a button, while concrete peels back to reveal bright, ethereal nooks and cellars. It begins with a rooftop chase, your schoolboy character pursuing a girl through streets filled with the mundane - wilting plants in terracotta pots, discarded footballs - but underpinned by heavy magic. Why not allow the game to speak for itself? Why flag up the autobiographical connotation before we've had the opportunity to find it for ourselves? But in a medium that rarely touches upon themes beyond the pursuit of power, the quest for dominance and the relentless search for strength, where allegory - even within the indie movement - is something of a stranger, who can blame the developer for drawing attention to its novel ambition up front?īesides, Papo & Yo does speak for itself: loud, clear, personal, affecting.
Some might accuse creative director Vander Caballero of heavy-handedness here. 'To my mother, brothers and sister, with whom I survived the monster in my father,' reads the game's opening dedication, setting a muted tone that no amount of sun-bronzed South American vistas can lift. For one, it wears its allegory on its sleeve. Papo & Yo then, is a game like the others, and yet somehow nothing like them at all. Which child hasn't longed to spear the heart of the monster that was their father's substance addiction?Ĭlimb onto the monster's stomach and you may stare confused into his grotesque face for a moment - a scene that shares composition but not tone with a similar one in My Neighbour Totoro. Which child hasn't dreamed their favourite toy would spring to life then fly them across gaps and chasms, or carry out those tasks that are just out of reach? Which child never fantasised about plucking buildings from their roots and, with nudge of the hand, rearranging them in whatever order they wish - a god of town planning, a king with the power to widen those boundaries adults impose? So it is with Papo & Yo, a PlayStation Store game bursting at the seams with innocent wish-fulfilment. They turn the bullied into the aggressor, the wimp into the champion footballer, and they guarantee we get the girl. They take us backstage at the concert they take us front line in the war. They propel us far into the future they return us to the distant past. They send us soaring into space they mine us deep underground. All video games give life to childhood fantasy.
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