In his review of Papo & Yo for Paste Magazine , Brian Taylor observes that the game doesn’t function as escapism, but rather that it is about escapism. In the game, which is famously an analogy about its director’s life with an abusive, alcoholic father, the protagonist must work with his friend and foe Monster in order to work his way through the landscape, fleeing from his enormous ally whenever he eats a poisonous frog (which is, of course, the game’s stand-in for liquor) and flies into a psychotic rage. I agree with Taylor’s observation, but want to make a further point about escapism, specifically concerning the fantasy of control.
Papo & Yo is a brave and personal piece of storytelling, and I am pleased Sony gambled on such an artistic, and frankly foreign, game; its depiction of Brazil’s impoverished favelas is colourful and unique, and the heavy tone and approach of the game is reminiscent of magical realist cinema. Certainly, the game’s success cannot help but seem like a step forward in terms of creating a market for mature and thoughtful games.
That said, as I played the game, I wondered what gaming as a medium offered this story that, say, animation or film could not. While Quico’s need for Monster to progress in certain areas helps communicate the family ties a child might have to an abusive parent (and the game uses this metaphor effectively), the “game”ness of Papo & Yo also diminishes its seriousness in places. While the sight of an enraged Monster painfully flinging a defenseless Quico is immediately striking, the game progresses and one becomes used to the image; over the course of the game’s 4-6 hours, Monster’s violence becomes largely a nuisance, a minor irritant on the way to the game’s goals. Essentially, the game’s primary metaphor becomes defanged in the process of “gamification,” as the personal experience of traumatic familial violence gives way to a mechanically utilitarian approach to the game’s puzzles.
Realizing this, I wondered if Caballero’s decision to make a game based on his experiences hampered his vision. While I picked away at this problem, I began to realize precisely what gaming had to offer such a narrative: the power of control.
This is, of course, an expansion on Taylor’s point regarding escapism: that Papo & Yo is ultimately about escape, and that Quico’s imagination offers a place where he can better handle the horrors of his real life. But we should not forget that Quico (or, perhaps Caballero) escapes to a game. The question must be asked: why? What does a game offer that any other format doesn’t?
Papo & Yo’s most breathtaking sequences involve Quico manipulating the world around him with magical chalk-lines, moving and shifting entire buildings with the power of his imagination and some innate magic stewing beneath the Earth. When the landscape peels away, as it frequently does, what one observes is not soil or sand, but rather a glowing white substance that resembles chalk and suggests the metaphysical underpinnings of the world around us. It is in this world that Quico intervenes, effecting some small change on the world in order to get by.
It is important to note that Quico doesn’t have ultimate control in this world; he only sees brief glimpses of the system underneath, interacting with them in the limited ways through the chalk-lines that he can see. Isn’t this a metaphor for precisely what we do when we play games? Catch a glimpse of how the game wants us to interact with it, and then push that button, turn that key, or pull that thread until we discover, well, the next thing the game wants us to do? The only difference is that in Papo & Yo, the world itself becomes a game through Quico’s fantasy.
This allows us to reflect on the nature of escapism itself: Quico doesn’t escape to some completely different world, but rather to a place where he is able to exert some small power – no small treasure for a young boy coping with an abusive father. Quico’s world of chalk and magic is nothing other than a video game – just as his cool robot friend, Lula (the source of his “double-jump,” naturally) is nothing more than a used action figure.
Given this turn, it seems that Papo & Yo comments on not just escapism, but games as escapism. On its release, there appeared to be a chorus of “it will make you stop and think about why you play games,” but I think this phrase rarely meant more than that the game had achieved a level of artistic depth that few before had managed. However, the question stands: why do you play games? How much control do you actually have over your own life? Do games manage to let you feel, for a moment, like the rules are set, and you just have to use them correctly?
If so, it appears that you and Vander Caballero have more in common than you may have suspected.
