Why I Almost Stopped Playing ‘That Dragon, Cancer’
There’s a moment in That Dragon, Cancer (TDC) that nearly stopped me from playing the game. A baby lies in a crib, crying at night. The crying escalates from soft whines to proper sobs that soon amplify into unbearable shrieking that redefines agony. At this moment, TDC rendered me helpless with no way to comfort the child – to palliate its crying and suffering. This shrieking goes on for minutes, with the main character softly murmuring to himself how badly he wishes he could make his son’s suffering disappear, and in that moment he turns to prayer. In his act of total resignation, the crying ceases.
I cannot bear the sound of children crying and had to actually take my headphones off during part of this sequence because of how earsplitting it was. It soured my experience with the game at the time despite the obvious empathy the scene attempts to engender. But after letting TDC fester in my brain for a few weeks, things about this scene clicked into place which have helped restore my appreciation for this otherwise outstandingly vulnerable and touching video game.
That Dragon, Cancer depicts the story of two parents losing their infant child to terminal cancer, serving as a sort of documentary game for the struggle of the two parents but also a sanctified memorial for the son they had lost during development. It’s a beautifully heartfelt project that I wanted to love all the way through, but that scene with the child crying couldn’t get out of my head until I heard Ryan Green, director and developer of TDC, explain the personal experience that fed into that scene’s development.
In a 2019 interview with Speak Life, Ryan’s wife Amy recounts his description of the night when Joel, their terminally ill son, was uncontrollably crying. Ryan had given up, pulled his hair out, and called Amy in need of her support. This moment, according to the Greens, “felt like playing a video game where all the controls were broken.” Nothing he tried could calm Joel down. Amy was in the middle of making babysitting arrangements for their other children when Ryan called her back a few moments later. Joel had finally fallen asleep. Ryan had realized after calling Amy that he needed to pray and thank God for all the miracles and blessings that he had along the way, and in that moment the baby’s insufferable cries ceased.
The frustration that I felt in response to this scene while playing TDC was something that I was supposed to feel. As a player, I was inhabiting that space with Joel, utterly without control in a tense situation. Whereas you would normally expect to be able to do something to help make Joel’s cries stop, this video game thrusts you through the despair and powerlessness that Ryan Green felt that night alone with his son in the hospital. Ryan Green’s real life account that inspired this scene is a microcosm of how TDC makes the player endure the spiritual struggle alongside the characters. From the Green family’s perspective as presented in the game, they are trying to do everything right by their son and by their faith, and yet they must come to terms with the fact that they don’t get to control this situation but to surrender themselves to it. And as a player, I was unable to surrender myself to it, a humbling realization after finishing the game.
That Dragon, Cancer risks being a self-indulgent mess, but successfully conveys themes that will stand the test of time in terms of how relevant they are to human endeavors. The game’s touching premise documents the process of life and loss, hope and despair, grief and healing. The game attempts to reunite our shared sense of humanity by grieving together collectively. The course of the game’s story thematically reminds me of words that author John Green has emphasized repeatedly throughout his work: we doubt other people’s pain, but our own pain is undoubtable to us. That Dragon, Cancer could be stripped down to Ryan Green’s similar realization through the process of making the game, that understanding suffering isn’t about answers, but about “walking with each other in the midst of not knowing the answer.”
This theme of unity in the face of uncertainty and suffering comes clearly through two of the most beautiful moments in the game. One of these moments is as whimsical as it is heartbreaking, where the player views part of the hospital in which Joel is being treated as an art gallery. The lighting changes, and you can spend time looking at each individual piece of art. These pieces of art are comprised of drawings from sick children in hospitals, photographs of loved ones lost to cancer, and other visual representations of the way cancer has impacted real people who chose to support this game’s development. The other moment is when you awake in a hospital room filled with well-wishing cards. If you choose to read these cards, you will soon realize that each one of these is different and personalized from real people who have had cancer touch their lives. Some of these messages are uplifting and celebratory, others are mourning and clearly still processing the pain of loss. But there are an overwhelming number of cards to read, making the widespread reach of cancer’s impact all the more visceral. The thing that unites these two moments is the realization that none of these images or cards are fictionalized for the game. It is a manifestation of that core idea: walking together without knowing the answer.
As human as the story of TDC is, there are some jarring tonal moments that scream “video game” that don’t quite cohere with the rest. The worst example of this dissonance is the mini-game kart racer that transforms the familiar hospital halls into a series of laps in a red wagon. It’s a jarring moment of absurdity and cheerfulness where the goal is to collect oversized farm animals in each lap. This is obviously a setup for the gut-punch realization at the end that these collectables in the race are a mixture of multisyllabic drugs and treatments that a cancer patient undergoes. Furthermore, the “time” indicator of the racing times in the upper righthand corner of the screen documents time passing in years, days, months, and hours that Joel is spending in the hospital, rather than the standard seconds and minutes monitoring the laps of most racing games. This moment just clashes in a way that needlessly gamifies the story, serving to undermine the pacing of the narrative.
Christianity and faith have an earnest presence in TDC that is not common in the overwhelming majority of games I tend to play. Thus, it’s a disservice to the game not to discuss how Christian imagery and mythology have manifested themselves throughout the story. The game bookends itself with symbols of communion, with the introduction of the playable duck eating bread and a nearby box of juice, as well as the conclusion with a pancake picnic in paradise. The title of this game comes from the bespoke dragon in the book of Revelation while also adhering to the trope of “battling” cancer in the way we “battle” enemies in games. From start to finish, the dragon of the game is arguably both cancer and God’s will.
Towards the end of TDC, the Green family approach a lighthouse. Amy and Joel are in a little boat without oars, floating along a vast ocean. Ryan’s character is flailing about, struggling in the water, drowning. In this moment, there is a genuine separation between each parent’s attitude towards their faith in this terrible situation where their son is dying of cancer. The boat can be seen as holding tightly onto faith – but without oars, surrendering control to God’s will – whereas drowning can be seen as losing faith and drifting away from God. Ultimately, this process of drowning is never a renunciation of religious convictions, but rather a severe and prolonged battle with them.
Moreover with regards to Ryan’s character drowning, his words reveal that his behavior is a coping mechanism. He needs to wallow in this drowning state so as to not give himself over to the trappings of hope. If he commits to his faith and doesn’t doubt, then the loss of Joel will hit him even harder than if he accepts the inevitable by veering from faith. Ryan is thus hiding from hope, because – to borrow his answer when asked why the ending of TDC makes so many people cry – “tears are the receipts of the love that we have.” TDC is not trying to hide the messy, brutal reality of losing a child to cancer, and I respect the unguarded presentation of struggling with faith in this scene.
Ultimately, Joel’s presence in the game causes Ryan to contemplate on his own mortality and purpose in the world. There is a rather psychedelic scene where he ponders his insignificance, as the aforementioned lighthouse pans out, and the ocean waters slowly become stars in the universe. The beam of the lighthouse circles around itself, broadcasting a beacon of hope to an empty and cold universe devoid of life. TDC uses this scene to remind us that pondering on one’s own mortality and one’s own yearning for meaning and significance is perhaps the most common experience amongst people. But it doesn’t want to give anyone easy solutions to those questions.
Ryan Green describes how video games are unique as a medium in that they allow you to “linger.” Part of the experience of losing Joel – or any child – involves wanting to linger with that child for as long as you possibly can. That Dragon, Cancer captures that feeling of wanting to linger, of wanting to spend time in a space with others, allowing our vulnerability to unite and heal us. There are many moments like the aforementioned art gallery and well-wishing cards that you could easily bypass to get through the story. But I found myself looking at each individual piece of art in the gallery and reading most of the cards (there are seriously hundreds) along the hallways and throughout the rooms. Lingering felt important and necessary in these spaces.
Joel Green was diagnosed with cancer at age one, and passed away four years later in March 2014. Rather than shelve this project – to develop a video game that explores the process of dealing with a child who is diagnosed with terminal cancer – Ryan Green describes the development of TDC as a primary source of purpose in the wake of Joel’s death. It became a vessel to memorialize his son in the best way that he could muster, and says he would have completely fallen apart without the game to work on. You can feel that love, passion, and commitment in every facet of this game.
That Dragon, Cancer explores its story and themes by asking the player to search for meaning in their suffering while simultaneously recognizing the suffering of others. It is not a game about pity, but rather a game about living with and moving through the darkness. The handprints on the hospital walls, the art gallery, and the endless rows of well-wishing cards all remind us of the connection we all have. This game is a token of the shared human experience. I’m glad I didn’t give up on this game and saw it through to the end. I’d like to think I’m a better person for it.
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