One of the great magic art of art-maybe simply the human brain-is the ability to transform something hyper-present and personal into something universal. Religious He is an autobiographical, semi -documentary game about being a child in Ecuador during the first successful qualification in the country for the World Championships in 2002. It is also a game of whole being a child: game, boredom, obsession, creating myths, a view of the adult world and the way adults inform everything about who you are. It is really attractive.
Religious This is Julián Corddero and Sebastian Valbuena. It is based on Corddero’s childhood in the capital of Ecuador, Quito and its intensive relationship – a significant part of the intensive relationship of the country – with football (which I call football for the rest of this article, just like the rest of the world outside the USA). So it’s a piece of memory – but memory is a complex thing. At the end of the game, Corddero admits that the successful qualifications of Ecuador to the World Cup is his first memory since he was four years aged. His memory of this is alive, but he regrets that he was not more extensive – so he has eight in the game. Religious This is a memory that he would like.
Nevertheless, it is communicated with authenticity and details that are completely addictive. Religious This is a tiny, deceitful narrative game of the first person, whose game takes several hours. (It is now available on Steam, Xbox and PlayStation, with the Switch version soon.) When Julián you wander at the family home, school and local park, kicking the ball with friends. You attend a wedding, punching balloons in ceiling fans; You overheat your parents’ conversations; You play hiding and look for your sister. Your mother pulls you in places, sends you, orders home, asks you to stay in place.
It is slow 2001, and the entire Quito is obsessed with the series of qualifying Ecuador matches with other South American nations. Julián’s memory jumps from one match to the next one, but instead of being the subject of action, matches are always a current context that is humming in the atmosphere of the city; Film material plays on TVs in store windows, and adults discuss strategy and a line of results everywhere.
As a child, Julián’s relationship with football sport is more tactile. He kicks. Corddero and Valbuena designed a sensational liquid and intuitive diagram of the first person football control, with dribbling, which is automatic, but still requires finesse (especially when running with R2), and kicks supplied by holding and moving the right stick. The system works equally well in a top -down video game, in which Julián plays on his console at home, Football Tino Tini 99 (Homage to Britsoft Classic from 1993 Football Dino Dini). This extremely playable and fun game in the game is stunningly arranged in a series of leisurely but arrested changes in perspective, which ambiguously blur the boundaries between the author, player and avatar. How Football Tino Tini eats teenage Julián, so ReligiousThe game that the elder Julián did about his life, eats ours.
Despite the tiny scope and budget of the game, its interpretation of Qito from 2001 seems to be surrounding and fully implemented. Visually, it consists of low 3D models with a low container rendered in granular, pastel monochrome, such as ZIN printing, simply, but vibrant-made cartoon black and white characters representing people and critical things. It’s like hazy photography imposed on understanding the child of what is critical. The brilliant sound design draws you deeper into this world, building the city as washing the noise of the environment and the layer of dialogue overlapping about life in Ecuador, because it stands in the face of a financial disaster and a shot in Sporting Glory. The result is impressionist, but also really realistic – just like in the reality of our world – in a way that it can achieve few video games. Playing it, you feel as if you have been transported to another time and place.
Photo: Julián Corddero, Sebastian Valbuena/Panic
That doesn’t mean it Religious It remains at the same time and place. Like some of his shapely narratives of independent ancestors-especially a mini masterpiece of blendo games, Thirty flights of love – – Religious It implements a cinema edition and composition with excellent effect. (The cinema is in the blood of Corddero; his father Sebastián directed a criminal film from 1999 Rats, mice, thief It was the first Ecuadorian film that was recognized at international film festivals. His parents can be heard talking about the state of the Ecuadorian film in the game. Later, Religious It breaks the fourth wall to look at the document at the mechanics of its own creation.
So yes, among others Religious It is a meditation on the inventive process, a remembered document about life in Ecuador from the Tillennium breakthrough and a playable essay on how to connect with people and societies. First of all, it is a game about being a child, kicking the ball and watching how it flows into the future. It’s a miracle.
