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# Why are there no gaming memoirs?
- URL: https://www.killscreen.com/new-york-times-reviews-papo-yo-draft/
- Published: 2012-10-02T21:30:16.000Z
- Updated: 2015-11-17T14:52:09.000Z
- Description: Chris Suellentrop’s review of Papo & Yo wonders why the memoir-as-game is a virtually untouched genre. Papo & Yo is a magical-realist fable about the relationship between its creative director and writer, Vander Caballero, and his alcoholic father. No, the game isn’t an autobiography or a documentar
- Author: Rachel Helps
- Tags: News, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2024-07-26 09:39

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/25/84/2584b75d-4bd6-4cce-8259-f1d1c65abbb5/content/images/previously/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/papo_yo.jpg)

Chris Suellentrop’s review of *Papo & Yo* wonders why the memoir-as-game is a virtually untouched genre.

> Papo & Yo is a magical-realist fable about the relationship between its creative director and writer, Vander Caballero, and his alcoholic father. No, the game isn’t an autobiography or a documentary, or even nonfiction. But its power is amplified by its relationship to actual events from its creator’s childhood — and by the player’s knowledge of that relationship. It feels like a landmark.  
>  
> “To my mother, brothers and sister, with whom I survived the monster in my father,” reads Mr. Caballero’s dedication at the start of the game. A bit on the nose, you might say. But when an artist is working in a medium that has almost no history of memoir — or even of “Pan’s Labyrinth”-style allegory — he can be forgiven for wanting to make sure the project is understood.