That Dragon, Cancer – A Testament to Love and Hope

How do we cope with death?

How do we cope with death? It’s a question every person on this planet will have to tackle at some point in their own way. Still, how do we cope with it when we can watch it creeping, insidious as we watch it take a loved one apart, bit by bit? How do we cope when it whittles our mothers and fathers; our sons and daughters, down to nothing, leaving only a shell that once contained the person that brightened your day and made your life? How do we return to life knowing that a twist of fate can take the most wonderful, hopeful, and powerful people in our lives and lay them low for no reason at all?

The only hope in that darkness is in celebrating what that person brought to your life, and that is the goal of Ryan Green and Josh Larson’s That Dragon, Cancer . The Green family, Ryan and Amy, started this game to document the hope they felt while their son, Joel, fought brain cancer. It was a story they had hoped would be one that captured his miraculous recovery, but the boy’s sad passing in March of this year turned the game into a powerful memorial and a testament to the joy he brought into their lives. As a narrative-focused point and click game, it will take players on the experience of living with Joel as he faced his Dragon, telling a story of love and hope despite despair.

Green and Larson have used footage of Joel at play to capture his movements as believably as possible, and have also included snippets of voice/laughter from him and other family members to further strengthen the pain and triumph of his story. It is meant to show players what their son was like, and what it felt like for the Greens to go through this crushing period in their lives. While it does capture hardship, again, this is a story meant to celebrate what Joel meant to them in life; a powerful, positive tale of the wonderful life of a little boy gone far too soon.

Green and Larson have started a Kickstarterto finalize the last few aspects of the project, and have received half of their funding in just over two days. If you would like to see this project reach the full scope of what the developers have in mind, please consider making a donation.

If you want to know more about That Dragon, Cancer, you can go to the game’s siteas well as follow developers Ryan Greenand Josh Larsonon Twitter.