That Dragon, Cancer Part 1. Foreboding times. (New Game Blind)
0Welcome to my That Dragon, Cancer let's play. My name is digidv85 but please call me dig for short. This is a blind let's play. It will feature a new game to completion. Gameplay shown on PC.
About Game: That Dragon, Cancer is a video game created by Ryan and Amy Green, Josh Larson, and a small team under the name Numinous Games. The autobiographical game is based on the Greens' experience of raising their son Joel, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer at twelve months old, and though only given a short time to live, continued to survive for four more years before eventually succumbing to the cancer in March 2014. The game is designed to have the player experience the low and high moments of this period in the style of a point-and-click adventure game, using the medium's interactivity and immersion to relate the tale in ways that a film cannot.
It was initially developed to relate Ryan and Amy's personal experience with Joel when they were uncertain of his health, but following his death, they reworked much of the game to memorialize and personalize their time and interactions with Joel for the player. The game was released on January 12, 2016 for these systems, on what would have been Joel's seventh birthday. The game was praised for being a raw autobiographical experience from the parents' view, making the player deal with the difficult emotions and the strength of the Greens' faith.
Background: That Dragon, Cancer bore out from experiences that Ryan and Amy Green had after their third child Joel was diagnosed with an atypical teratoid rhabdoid tumor at twelve months of age. By November 2010, the doctors had only given the child about four months to live, but despite developing seven additional tumors, Joel continued to live for four years following his initial diagnosis. Joel's condition left him mentally underdeveloped, being unable to speak even by age 2, and he required additional parental care and supervision, alongside numerous visits to doctors and hospitals for palliative care and chemotherapy treatment. In 2014, Joel's condition worsened, and the Greens temporarily moved from Colorado to San Francisco to take part in an experimental drug trial. The new drug failed to relieve any of the new symptoms. Ryan and Amy, following the advice of the hospice, decided to take him off his feeding tube, and he died on March 13, 2014 at the age of five.
Gameplay: That Dragon, Cancer is played as an exploration game from both third- and first-person perspective through a number of abstracted scenes based on the Greens' experience with raising Joel from learning of his condition through his death. The player takes the role of Joel's parents, Ryan and Amy, in fourteen small vignettes that capture some of the emotional moments they had to face during Joel's life expressed as interactive art. The player is able to interact with the characters and make certain choices, similar to those that the Greens had to face. For example, the first scene is where the parents have learned of their child's diagnosis, having the player consider their new responsibilities for caring for the child while reflecting on the "absurdity and sterility" of the hospital setting. The game includes some fantasizing and imaginative reconstructions of some of the real moments the Greens experienced, such as a wagon ride in a hospital being envisioned as a colorful racing game. Alongside the interactivity, the game includes narration from both Ryan, Amy, and other family members, as well as recordings such as voicemails that they had made during their time with Joel. Among the scenes include cards, letters, and other mementos of support for the Greens, sent in by people that had experienced similar losses in their life.
Development: Ryan Green came up with the idea for the game when Joel was four. He and Amy, both devout Christians, felt that the added years they had with Joel from the original diagnosis were a miracle. Prior to the idea, Green had written some smaller games that were meant to be more emotional, such as Giga Wife, which demonstrated how one's interactions with a spouse could be negatively compared to a Tamagotchi-like game. While at church, Ryan came up with the idea for That Dragon, Cancer during their reflection on the past few years, specifically recalling one night at the hospital where he was trying to stop Joel from crying but anything he did seemed to make his crying worse; only after he sat down and prayed to God did Joel stop crying; Ryan recalled how that reminded him of a video game with subverted game mechanics. He wanted to relay his experiences of raising Joel to a larger audience, and felt that an interactive video game would be a better medium to express a message of grace. The name of the game is taken from a story that the Greens had told their other sons about Joel's illness through an allegory about how Joel was a brave knight fighting a dragon named Cancer.
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