Despelote, an indie soccer game developed by Julián Cordero, takes inspiration from the personal and universal experience of playing football in the neighborhood rather than the high-octane simulation of FIFA. Set in Quito, Ecuador during the 2022 World Cup qualifiers, the game recreates the atmosphere of Cordero's childhood and pays homage to a significant moment in Ecuadorian history. The game features hand-drawn 2D characters interacting with 3D environments, capturing the feeling of kicking a ball around in a real-world space.
Think about football video games and it would be natural to immediately think of FIFA , super slick titles that aim to replicate the experience of watching the beautiful game on television. They tap into the cutting edge tools ofHowever, for indie developer Julián Cordero, designer and programmer of Despelote, described on Steam as"a soccer game about people", he was inspired by a more immediate, personal and universal experience.
"I grew up playing so much football in Ecuador, and I was very passionate about it," he tells me."When I was thinking about what football meant to me, it's not FIFA. I've never played in a stadium full of thousands of people with Cristiano Ronaldo next to me. It's been just more like playing in the neighbourhood, kicking a ball everywhere. That's what we wanted to show in Despelote, the experience of actually growing up with it.
"Everybody remembers that World Cup in Ecuador," he recalls."It really changed everything, and it was one of my earliest memories. As we were making the game, it started becoming more and more autobiographical. I could never just write a character, I could only just pick out stuff from my life."To recreate that period visually, Cordero sought out artist Sebastian Valbuena, having already been a fan of his work.
"We wanted to combine these characters that are more expressive with a setting that is more real and evokes what Ecuador was like in those years," Valbuena explains."The world has this gritty quality that is more like the textures that you actually see in the street. We really like the contrast that it had with the characters that really stand out because they're just like these cartoon characters."Daily design news, reviews, how-tos and more, as picked by the editors.
INDIE GAMES SOCCER GAME ECUADOR NOSTALGIA 3D ENVIRONMENTS
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