Vander Caballero, designer of the upcoming PlayStation 3 puzzle adventure game Papo & Yo, had a painful childhood with a father battling severe alcoholism.

Caballero said that he would look to videogames as a way to escape from his abusive reality.

"Escaping through videogames is what gave me life during those years," Caballero said during an interview with Wired earlier this month.

Now Caballero is using his personal demons to fuel his creative vision for Papo & Yo, which will be available via the PlayStation Network game download service later this year. Developed by his Montreal-based studio Minority, Papo & Yo is being funded by Sony's Pub Fund, which provides financial support to smaller developers with innovative game ideas.

Papo & Yo puts players in the role of a boy named Quico who is desperately trying to save the life of his best friend, a hulking creature aptly named Monster. Quico must capture toxic frogs infesting his village, frogs that Monster is addicted to eating. When he doesn't eat the poison frogs, Monster is Quico's pal. But when he's eaten too many, he becomes terrible and violent.

Caballero said that capturing the frogs in the game represents taking control of his father's crippling addiction, something that he wishes he had growing up.

"I remember sleeping in my bed and hearing the electric garage door opening; that meant my father had come home drunk," he said. "I wish I'd had a frog I could catch to solve the problem, but the only thing that I could do was close my door."

It wasn't easy creating a game that reflects the struggles of his own upbringing. Caballero said that it took more than 10 years of therapy to be able to share his experiences through the fantasy depicted in Papo & Yo.

"When you're living with an addicted person, you're always struggling to save them – knowing deep inside that there's nothing you can do," Caballero said. "We protect others with the desire that our protection of them will reflect back on us. That's the struggle I want to bring to players."

Caballero said that what he ultimately hopes players come away with after playing Papo & Yo is that videogames shouldn't only be about winning and losing.

"I hope that's the biggest takeaway," he said. "As much as I liked playing Super Mario Bros. as a child, it did not help me become an adult. In defeating Bowser, I was improving my gaming skills, but I wish I had more experiences that taught me about the challenges of life."