Papo & Yo

[TheLastBaron]

So I originally heard about this game on the podcast Top Score (where host Emily Reese interviews game composers) in an episode where the guest was Brian D'Oliveira who composed this game.  At the time the game was only on PSN so I couldn't play it, but I just saw it's not on steam.  Has anyone played it?  Based on the premise and the interview it seems like it is either really good, or really poor, based on how well executed it is, and reviews seem hit or miss.

 

For anyone who wants to listen to the interview you can hear it at http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/12/21/papo-and-yo-top-score-brian-doliveira  and it's a good listen even if you have no interest in the game.

[vimes]

I just bought it on Steam and will probably play it over the week-end.

[Justin Leego]

A few of the more recent Brainy Gamer podcast participants couldn't speak highly enough of it. Episode 41 with Tom Bissell stood out in particular.

Podcast host Michael Abbot started to write about it towards the end of last year here:

For five years I’ve written about all sorts of games here. Papo & Yo is the first to incapacitate me; to make me feel awkward and inadequate to the task. Papo & Yo brought me face-to-face with painful truths I've never addressed. It resurrected pieces of my childhood long buried in the dirt. It took me where I've never wanted to go. Back to my father, and that fearful time, and all the wreckage.

...

Papo & Yo is a “puzzle-platformer” like Vertigo is a “suspense-thriller.” Its genre trappings frame far more important elements that convey the game’s nature and ambitions. When Quico rearranges the favela, bending buildings like vinyl tubing, it’s possible to see this reconstruction as absurdly easy puzzle-solving.

But doing so presumes “gameplay” cannot be abstracted in the ways we routinely abstract other design elements. In other words, instead of assuming Papo & Yo’s puzzles were designed by hopelessly incompetent puzzle-makers, why not consider the possibility that their simplicity communicates something essential about the story this game wants to tell?

PS. Thanks for the Top Score recommendation TLB, I've listened to a few of them now and they're really good aren't they?