Poetry on a PS3: Papo & Yo

Poetry on a PS3: Papo & Yo

“…my message is that’s its impossible to pass on experience to others or to learn from others. We must live our own experience, we cannot inherit it.”

–Andrei Tarkovsky (1983)

It is no secret that humans love to tell stories. That is how we have connected with each other for centuries. Poetry, art, cinema, theatre, song – these art forms are all evidence of the innate human desire to share personal experiences. Although some assert that we can never fully “inherit” someone’s experience, artists, like Tarkovsky, still strive to use art as a way to approach this transcendental transfusion of emotion, experience and context. These sentiments are what motivated Vander Caballero and his team at Minority studios to explore the experience of parental abuse and alcoholism through their 2012 videogame, Papo & Yo. Although not without its faults, many have lauded this game as a unique use of the videogame medium to fuse art and storytelling.

Papo & Yo is a videogame centered on the trials and tribulations of a boy named Quico and his robot friend, Lula. Taking place in a surrealist South American favela that magically changes shape, the conflict these two characters face revolves around another “friend” – Monster. At first, Monster appears as a helpful, friendly presence with a dietary preference for toads. However, this ‘preference’ quickly becomes clear as an addiction, and when Monster ingests a toad, it drops the friendly façade and becomes a true monster, threatening the safety of its friends Quico and Lula. In playing the game, the user assumes the role of Quico who, with the help of Lula, is determined to find a cure for Monster’s addiction.

What makes this game special is that it is based on Vander Caballero’s (the creator) personal experience with an abusive alcoholic father. Although the game is not explicitly a biography, the story line and overarching message of the piece is focused on communicating the emotional experiences of a child struggling with an abusive parent. Unlike most videogames, Papo & Yo places story telling at the top of its priority list. Furthermore, the story is real. Although many games rely on an engaging story line, pretty much none of these are based off common, real-world scenarios. In an interview with Jian Ghomeshi of CBC, Caballero explained why he chose to base the videogame off his experiences.

I wanted to create a game that when people finish the game they find some meaning to it. They find some closure. I found that when I started doing Papo & Yo, I put my childhood there, and what I wanted to do is to help people that lived similar stories like [mine]. When you write a book or make a movie about something that is meaningful to you, you are trying to pass a moral- some kind of [message] about how your survived that experience in the hope of making a better life for someone else.

It is easy to say that Papo & Yo is quite a departure from the purpose of most videogames: entertainment for entertainment’s sake. Caballero believes that for too long videogames have been ignored as a powerful medium for storytelling and artistic expression because of their technical limitations. But now that game-design technology has made leaps and bounds, the technology is no longer an issue. What matters now is intention. He believes that technology has allowed videogames to transcend the abilities that its name suggests. Instead of scenes played out on a monitor, video games are rapidly approaching a form of “simulation”. As a result, videogames like Papo & Yo now have the potential to communicate complex emotional concepts.

Already, Papo & Yo has pulled on some heartstrings in the public.  Caballero recounts how he received a letter from a father who admitted that he yelled at his son. However, after encountering this game, the father admitted that he realized the negative emotional impact he was making on his son. Collette Bennett, a writer with joystiq.com, wrote a review of the game where she examined the allegorical links between her experience as the daughter of an alcoholic mother and the ultimate lesson of acceptance that she learned as an adult. Additionally, in reading through some of the comments on websites on the Amazon.com page for Papo & Yo and gaming blogs, it is clear that some users have found it to be quite a powerful experience. And while most reviewers have expressed critical opinions of the game’s mechanics and game play, the vast majority of reviewers declare that it is an innovative use of the medium with the potential for serious emotional impact.

Ultimately, Papo & Yo’s success is not guaranteed by any means. But like everything else in the world, evolution happens in small steps. The fact that a videogame that tackles topics like abuse and addiction has been released on a prominent console system demonstrates the potential for change. In fact, Caballero notes that the large game producers that he had worked for previously unequivocally avoided including these subjects in their games. Also, the press coverage and reactions that this game has garnered within the gaming community demonstrates that people are interested in what effects this medium can have on players’ emotions. Although, this game hasn’t yet tapped into the wealth of human experience that exists on the Internet, the game has “connected” people. As a work of art, Papo & Yo has made people think, feel and empathize. It’s poetry on a PS3.

In the future, it will be interesting to see other games that tackle these emotionally charged topics and if they can be linked to the internet. Already, a game called Journey has taken an unconventional approach to blending online multiplayer interactions with an open-world gaming model. Although, Papo & Yo is not necessarily "net art", it signifies the next potential incarnation of videogames that blur the line between entertainment, storytelling and art.