Travel back to the dawn of the 2000s and walk the streets of Quito, a city on the boil with soccer mania, alongside an 8-year-old boy.Despeloteis not merely a game; it is a digital time capsule conspiring with Julián Cordero to invite one inside his childhood. Imagine a world filtered through that lens of youthful imagination: Static-laced memories, sun-flipped streets, and the constant thud of a soccer ball. As young Julián, accompany him through step-family dynamics, playing kick-the-can, and scattered breaking news about the country that pieced his own story together.Despelotedoesn’t just provide nostalgia but gives a rare glimpse of Ecuador through the gloriously self-absorbed view of a child teetering on the verge of national sporting fever.
Quito, 2001. Ecuador nearly touched World Cup glory and the city turned into a hotbed of soccer craziness.Despeloteis not just a game; it’s like a feverish summer of soccer. See this through the Cordero’s eyes: a frenzy of street soccer, pixelated FIFA matches, roaring stadium screens, and exasperated sighs from his long-suffering neighbors.
Imagine landing in an alive photograph album of Quito. Despelote is not just another game; it is a pulsating echo of life in Ecuador. The developer’s colleagues engage in genuine loose chats-full of jokes, secrets about and spirits of their own day (in their charming speech bubbles)-that circle around. The world is fabricated out of stylized photographs, memories made into physical forms: soft, solid-colored backgrounds framing sharply contrasted monochrome portraits of people and objects. Ecuador’s World Cup fever flickers through in-game televisions to watch a grainy form of passion unfold. A wonderful moment of near-reality mingles with reverie to create an immersive experience that clutches hold of you.
Transitions run into each other: a slight whisper of a zoom with a world blurring at the edges, seemingly calling for a moment to be spent basking in the unadulterated joy of childhood. Controls are sublimely simple: a flick with the wrist sends the ball soaring, holding your breath becomes an impulse to sprint, a tap opens the world to new possibilities. A glance at your wrist serves just as well as ticking clock, reminding you of the crisp eve, subtly drifting away. In the heart of this idyll, sparks of surreal magic ignite: shadows of visions-the ghostly faintness of an older Cordero-a teenager, unfolding Ecuador. These deeply symbolic insertions begin to stir a slight tension, or confer meaning, without the ruthlessness of breaking-up-the-places-where-everything-else-dies of these precious days.
Panic
The story is forgotten among grand quests and grand narratives, withDespelotemerely whispering among the damp air of Cordero’s childhood. The hushed sounds of parental admonitions from the front seat of the van, Cordero’s breath lightly drawing on the window. Impossible to do away with a mother’s loving exasperation to fight for her son’s attention against a flickering TV screen. The sister’s simple summons:”Draw me a frog!” Followed by the injustice: A lost ball was replaced by a hollow echo of an empty bottle being kicked down the street.Despeloteshuns against plot; rather, it is about the heart-rending poetry of daily life. A collection of deeply personal and yet universal instances are a witness to the exquisite beauty in the ordinary.
Despelote isn’t another ordinary game; it is entering a living, breathing memory. While the raw vulnerability apparent in That Dragon, Cancer, and Dys4ia paved the road for autobiographical games, Despelote walks along a sun-washed lane of childhood nostalgia instead of a distressing hospital corridor. It indeed is a memoir, but unlike most other memoirs, it is painted with colors of youthful exuberance and quiet contemplation. Despelote raises the game and proves that a personal and introspective view of youth can find deep resonance in an interactive world. And its secret is absolute honesty.
Panic
And then the screen cracks. Not literally, marking the seamless shattering of Cordero’s fourth wall inDespelote. Suddenly, the vivid colors of the game start to lose their lustre, and Cordero’s voice no longer serves to direct the gameplay but narrates from the heart. He describes the pilgrimage that he and Sebastián Valbuena took to Quito, which was their effort to record the very soul ofDespelotein sounds and places. He wonders about memory’s capricious embrace, confused by the game’s timeline from his honest point of view. At the bottom of this, there is an undying urge to get it right: to let players feel the electric pulse of Ecuador in that time, when soccer was not just a game but a collective heartbeat and he, a boy swept away with the rhythm.
I believe he succeeded.
Despelote is available now on Steam, PlayStation 4, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, published by Panic.
Despelote
$15 at Steam
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