That Dragon, Cancer was never meant to be the next big video game franchise. You don’t shoot aliens or run anyone off the road. You don’t fight the Joker or, despite its name, even battle any dragons. The game, designed by Ryan and Amy Green, was simply meant to help players understand what they went through as their son, Joel, suffered from and eventually died of cancer. You’re there with the doctors as they break the bad news, despair liberally flooding the room. You try to comfort the crying, hurting boy in the hospital. You read letters of encouragement. You pray for a miracle you doubt will ever come.
It’s one of the most difficult games I’ve ever played. N0t because the gameplay is challenging, but because it’s hard to walk in the Green’s shoes. It’s hard to watch someone you love suffer … even if that “someone” is a faceless bunch of pixels you “met” just two hours before.
I’ve written about That Dragon, Cancer before. But now the game has picked up a major honor. Last night, during The Game Awards, Ryan Green accepted the award for Games That Impact, an honor well-deserved. In his acceptance speech, Ryan was able to talk again about his son, Joel. “In the end, it was not the story we wanted to tell,” he says. “But you chose to love us through our grief by being willing to stop, and to listen, and to not turn away.”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9D8Hux9IQI]
“Grief is an attack on life,” comedian Patton Oswalt told The New York Times in the wake of his wife’s unexpected death. “It’s not a seducer. It’s an ambush or worse. It stands right out there and says: ‘The minute you try something, I’m waiting for you.’” Having faith can make the burden of grief easier in some ways, but I wonder if it can make it harder, too. For a life to be snatched away is tragic enough. To have it stolen under the watchful eye of a loving God … it’s enough to shake anyone’s faith. To lose a son, as Ryan and Amy did, must be indescribably difficult.
But through their game, the couple did describe their pain. Their sorrow. And ultimately, their hope. It’s a sad game, but an uplifting one, too, and one well worth playing. Go to the game’s website to learn more.
