Julián Cordero and Sebastian Valbuena first-person soccer game, set in 2001 Ecuador, is a short but brilliant exploration of real life as a video game
One of the great magic tricks of art — or perhaps just of the human brain — is the ability to transmute something hyper-specific and personal into something universal. Despelote is an autobiographical, semi-documentary game about being a kid in Ecuador during the country’s first successful qualifying run for the 2002 World Cup. It’s also just a game about the totality of being a kid: the play, the boredom, the obsession, the myth-making, the outsiders’ view of the adult world, and the way that adult world informs everything about who you are. It’s really beautiful.
Despelote is by Julián Cordero and Sebastian Valbuena. It’s based on Cordero’s childhood in Ecuador’s capital city, Quito, and his intense relationship — much of the country’s intense relationship, at the time — with soccer (which, for the rest of this article, I’ll call football, like the rest of the world outside of the U.S. does). It’s a memory piece, then — but memory is a tricky thing. Late in the game, Cordero admits in a voiceover that Ecuador’s successful qualification for the World Cup is his first memory, from when he was four. His memory of it is vivid, but he wishes it was more expansive — so, in the game, he’s eight. Despelote is the memory he wishes he had.
Nonetheless, it’s communicated with an authenticity and detail that is completely immersive. Despelote is a short, deceptively simple first-person narrative game that takes a couple of hours to play. (It’s available now on Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation, with a Switch version coming soon.) As Julián, you roam your family home, the school, and the local park, kicking a ball around with your friends.
