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In November 2001, the equator qualified for the Football World Cup for the first time. The country then emerged from the crisis: inflation had increased 96% at the turn of the millennium, the sugar currency had been abandoned in favor of the dollar, and a military coup had filed the previous president. Even the Colombian coach of the national team, Hernán Darío Gómez, briefly resigned from his post after being shot in the leg, allegedly after not selected the son of a former president for the youth team.
However, football was also a source of great comfort. Gómez has returned and, guaranteeing a qualification with a 1-1 draw against Uruguay, the country has forgotten its misfortunes. “Before, we had economic, social and political struggles,” said goalkeeper José Cevalos. “But every match that the equator played who took a step forward for the qualifications gathered the country.”
It is on this area of hope and fear that narrative adventure game Pious plays. It opens onto a retro-avec a game called Soccer '99. While you fight through a black and white fight in block between Ecuador and Peru, two voices are starting to speak Spanish in the background: the parents, wanting to encourage their eight-year-old son of football Julián in his hobby, but suspected that he has just been swept away like the rest of the country in fever of the World Cup.
Slowly, the camera zooms in to show the TV you play on, then a blurred wall and shelves, then two hands hammering a controller. You are Julián. Your parents turn off the game to catch the dying moments of the World Cup qualification match between Peru and Ecuador, just like Agustín Delgado obtained a winner of the 90th minute. Pious is the story of the following sporting obsession.
And it is, on the whole, a story. The gameplay does not extend far beyond the dribbling of a football in the streets of Quito, which are presented in a two-colored aesthetic pixelated by Évocator. There are never any explicit instructions, objectives or opportunities to fail – just fragments of football memories to live at your own pace.
Beyond the World Cup, it is the story of the erosion of careless infantile ignorance. The adults you meet spend their days complaining about work, politics and relationships. Their effect is to burst the bubble in the form of football around you and to cancel the arrival of adolescence.
Pious is a beautifully soft-soft tribute to an element of passage experienced both by a boy and an entire country. At the end of each scene, the screen is slowly blurring, as if a memory was finished – or Julián covers pieces of different. One of the creators of the game, Julián Cordero, born in Quito, admits as a voice that he was five years old, not eight, that summer, and that he does not remember it as well as he wishes.
In a sequence, the color suddenly changes. No more dusty ocher and purple – everything is now green. It's just you and black and white football on a large grassy field. The horizon is blurred, and even the goal posts are green and invaded. Whenever you start the ball, it flies away with a “Whoosh” sound which gives the impression of being a divine event. This may be the case, because another ball immediately descends from the sky. Music loops on the ambient keyboard in the background. Everything seems infinite.
Except that this is not the case. Because while you've looked at your feet, perfecting your pastors, your environment has changed. The goal has disappeared, the sky has darkened and vast buildings of apartments have arisen around you. Time has empiety of your innocent daydream. “You must accept that you are no longer children,” said a coach to an older one while you are heading for practice. “You are all young people now.”
The equator did not win the 2002 World Cup. They did not even get out of the group phase. But for a short time, football was all that had. And in the short time you need to finish PiousThat's all that will also matter to you.
★★★★★
'Desppelote' is available now on PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox Series X / S and Nintendo Switch
