Father and son moment.

Singular indie experience “That Dragon, Cancer” released this week on Tuesday, January 12.  It released on PC/Mac via Steam and also released on OUYA.  The game fits nicely in that growing subset of games, particularly indie games, that are often considered more of an “Experience” than a “Game”.  Your mileage with the terms may differ, some would use the term experience as a pejorative, while to others it may just be considered a tool to describe a fairly new category of gaming.

The story of That Dragon, Cancer is intricately tied to the creation of the game itself and the motivation for doing so.  From the game’s website it is described as:

A JOURNEY OF HOPE IN THE SHADOW OF DEATH

An immersive narrative videogame that retells Joel Green’s 4-year fight against cancer through about two hours of poetic, imaginative gameplay that explores faith, hope and love.

The game was created by Ryan Green, a programmer and game developer, and Amy Green, a writer, speaker, and stand up comedian.  The game/experience is about their son Joel who was diagnosed with Atypical Teratoid Rhabdoid Tumor (AT/RT) at the age of one, and their family’s experience with him over those 4 years.  The game can best be described as an impressionistic experience or adventure game attempting to describe to the player an event that may be difficult, or even nigh impossible, to describe.

Release day pancake party.

The game’s release was celebrated in Loveland, Colorado, with a pancake party.  This is where the developers make their home, a fairly small town just north of Denver.  The pancake party was because “Joel loved pancakes”, and the developers invited others who were interested in the game or touched by their story to host their own pancake parties as well.  Judging by Ryan’s twitter there were indeed many who followed suit.

Early Response to the Game

Thus far the game has received a very positive response from the game critics.  With a small sample size so far, it is an indie game after all, the Metacritic is 78.  Many critics are praising the courage it took to open their life’s story in such an open and honest way.  And also the inventive way it deals with challenging subjects.  This seems to be one of those games that is destined to come up in the future during the Games v Art debates.

However, if you look at the User Review score on Metacritic, another story is also presented.  It is currently at 5.8, and my sense of looking around the internet is that it may even end up going lower.  A good example of this is over at Penny Arcade where Jerry Holkins is a fan of the game and they created a new web comic about it’s release.  However if you read the forum posts regarding the strip and the game it paints an interesting picture.

The problem isn’t so much whether the game is objectively good, if there could even be said to be such a thing as objective opinion.  The problem seems to be whether you want to put yourself through the experience of playing the game.  Particularly the comments of those who are parents themselves, to a lot of people that answer seems to be no.  While there is a sector of the population that does not watch movies that are too emotionally harrowing, when that experience extends to games that sentiment is even more stark.  Because gaming, as an interactive experience, is normally a much more involving and empathetic experience than movie watching.  One can also imagine that with the rise of VR in gaming, pronounced especially this year of 2016, that gaming is going to get more immersive, not less.

As the gaming medium gets ever more mature in it’s techniques and it’s audience, this situation will crop up at an increasing rate.  And, to me and many others, that is a good thing.  It creates valuable discussions.  And while, to me, you would be far better off experiencing the game itself before you make your own judgement.  It is still great that we are having these discussions and that in this case, creating a game helped a family both cope with a major loss and to help the memory of their son live on.  This is the medium as a maturing art form, folks.

SOURCES 1, 2, 3, 4