despelote is why we can't let people just enjoy things
this game is beautiful and boring, and we need more like it
There was a time in my life when I would’ve hated despelote.
It wasn’t even that long ago; ten years, perhaps?
Back then Assassin’s Creed II was my idea of ‘peak video game’ and I sunk hours every afternoon after school into Madden and FIFA. That version of me would’ve hated despelote. And the reason I would have hated despelote seems quite simple, actually, seems quite reasonable:
despelote is not fun. It is not fun, but it is other things.
For one, despelote might be the closest thing to time travel humanity has ever actually invented. Even if they built a time machine that would take you back to Quito in 2001, as the Ecuador football team was fighting to qualify for their first World Cup, I somehow don’t think it would be as magical as it is to play the young protagonist Julián, kicking a football around its wonderfully ordinary streets.
You could say that this a game “dripping in nostalgia,” and I am sure someone has said or written it, but I think that would be underselling the game. despelote is a game that puts you in a new kind of place in a new kind of way; by the time you finish despelote you are more connected to our world and the people who live in it. Maybe you will have even cried.
If you get the chance, you should buy and play it.
All that to say, despelote is exactly why we can’t let people ‘just enjoy things.’
—
So I said it’s not fun. And that’s pretty true.
The most exciting part of despelote, from a gameplay perspective, happens within the first 30 seconds of the game. You are sitting on the couch with a small TV playing a kind of retro football game, like some kind of ancient 2D version of FIFA. I treated this like a gimmick at first but quickly became actually interested in the game and, just as I was getting a hold of the controls and had scored a goal or two…
My parents turned off the TV. And the rest of the game began.
Every kid knows the feeling, of course: you are having the time of your life with a video game and your parents tell you to turn it off and then you have to deal with real life which is so much more complex and, at least as a kid, more boring. And despelote is scarily accurate to real life here: the rest of the game is significantly less “fun” to play than the FIFA-esque football game you play at the start. Because that’s a football game. And despelote, well, it isn’t a football game. Not really. It involves a lot of football, yes, and one of the main things you can do as you explore open-world slices of Quito is kick around a ball.
But the football gameplay itself is, well… It’s clunky. It’s not very competitive. It’s not very “exciting”. There is something nostalgic about awkwardly trying to knock a bottle off a neighbor’s shed with a football, but it’s not the kind of thing you come home from school excited to pick up and play.
Because of this, there is an entire crop of people—the me from ten years ago—who would probably describe despelote as a ‘boring’ game and thus not worth their time. (This may explain why, despite all of its success in the indie world, despelote as of this writing has fewer than 1,000 Steam reviews.)
The people in question are the ‘graphics’ guys, the ‘gameplay’ guys, the FIFA guys. The people who see despelote and think, ‘wow, that sounds boring, I’d rather play FIFA.’ These guys are, like, most of the guys who play video games. (And probably gals too, but no need to bring that up.) This is the ‘let people enjoy things’ category of gamers, and I think if fewer of us were like that, then, well…
Then we’d have less FIFA and more despelote. And that would be an amazing thing.
—
Like I said, I used to be the archetype of ‘let people enjoy things’. I approached video games the way I approached everything else: how much ‘fun’ can I have with this? The Dark Knight was the best movie of the decade. Madden 14 was the best video game of the year. Assassin’s Creed had the best combat.
I remember this moment years later, living on the coast of Croatia, alone. I tried watching this movie called Drive My Car. One of my film school friends had sent it to me. Thirty minutes into the movie, I (basically) thought: Well this is boring. Where’s Tom Cruise? Where are the Avengers? Where are the little quips? But I kept watching, because I told this friend I would and because I wanted to prove a point.
When the movie was over, I hadn’t changed my opinion. I still thought it was boring. But I also thought it was beautiful and maybe the best movie I had ever seen. I even cried. And I spent the next years of my life searching out more interesting, more meaningful, more beautiful art. Even if it was ‘boring’!
(I still like The Dark Knight. But it’s no longer in my top 10.)
This is how I feel about despelote. It’s not a fun football game. But that’s not really important. “Having fun” is not the thing despelote is optimizing for; the football itself is just a lens to explore a culture and a place and a moment and a childhood that no longer exist, at least not as they do in the game. If you play this game specifically because you think it’s fun to kick the ball, great. I’m happy for you. I thought it was okay.
—
There’s a version of life where you remain a ‘things enjoyer’ for as long as you live. You never really try to critically engage with art, with craft, with hobbies, with anything that’s not dopamine-optimized. And I guess that can be fine. But I also think it cripples what art can be, what video games can be. If everyone wants FIFA, then they will just make more FIFA, but can’t more people want something else?
I’m not revealing anything (many people) don’t know here, but art can be more than mindless pleasure! It can be really meaningful! It can change the way you see the world and behave in it! It can make you question things about yourself and your life; it can make you realize things! And, well, FIFA is not doing any of that. If you want FIFA, that’s great. Enjoy things, I guess. But you’re missing out.
You’re missing out on despelote.
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