Sup Holmes & Vander on Papo & Yo, minorities, and more

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[Destructoid’s Director of Communications Hamza Aziz asked Jonathan Holmes to make a show called ‘Sup, Holmes?’ so that Destructoid could later sell a t-shirt that says ‘Sup, Holmes?’ on it. This is that show. Subscribe to the podcast feed and find more episodes here.]

This week on Sup, Holmes? we welcome former EA developer and current Minority Media Inc. creative director Vander Caballero to the program. Vander’s first game with Minority, Papo & Yo, bravely takes on issues that most other developers would shy away from. We live in a time when our mainstream culture still sees videogames as the stuff of children’s fantasies, not appropriate for dealing with serious issues. Vander and his team made a game about the fantasies of a child who is processing some very serious issues, including coping with the addiction of a caregiver. It’s a subtle, subversive, beautiful, and affecting game that’s well worth talking about. 

We’ll be discussing the game at length while touching on Vander’s past work at EA (including Army of Two), what he makes of the current call from certain high profile developers for games to be less violent, his thoughts on the current depiction of minorities in games, and much more. Join us on Sunday at 1pm PST/4pm EST. It’s going to be a hot one. 

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Jonathan Holmes
Destructoid Contributor - Jonathan Holmes has been a media star since the Road Rules days, and spends his time covering oddities and indies for Destructoid, with over a decade of industry experience "Where do dreams end and reality begin? Videogames, I suppose."- Gainax, FLCL Vol. 1 "The beach, the trees, even the clouds in the sky... everything is build from little tiny pieces of stuff. Just like in a Gameboy game... a nice tight little world... and all its inhabitants... made out of little building blocks... Why can't these little pixels be the building blocks for love..? For loss... for understanding"- James Kochalka, Reinventing Everything part 1 "I wonder if James Kolchalka has played Mother 3 yet?" Jonathan Holmes
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