When Ryan and Amy Green lost their 5-year-old son Joel to cancer, they channelled their grief into creating “a videogame developer’s love letter to his son”.
Computer programmer Ryan began making “That Dragon, Cancer” while Joel was still alive; he had already survived longer than expected and they hoped the game would tell the tale of a medical miracle.
“We’ve had to re-evaluate the story we were telling. We kind of settled on, ‘What was it like to love Joel?'”
But when Joel died in March 2014, his parents put all their grief and energy into finishing the game. Three years later, it’s being launched today on what would have been Joel’s 7th birthday.
“After Joel died we kept making the thing we were making before Joel died. We’re looking at the next few days like, ‘What is life like when we don’t have this passion project?'”
“It’s a little surreal,” said Amy, “I think we deeply want it to matter to people.”
Ryan was inspired to make the game after a night in hospital with Joel who, desperately dehydrated but too sick from chemotherapy to keep liquids down, wouldn’t stop crying.
Ryan says he sat down to pray and suddenly the crying stopped. He was so moved by the moment that, without showing Joel in pain, it’s been programmed into the game.
A mixture of Kickstarter campaigns, documentaries and loans have funded the creation of the game so far.
But when testers playing the game at a San Francisco conference were moved to tears by its story, Ryan and Amy glimpsed hope that Joel’s memory would resonate with others.
“Joel didn’t have the chance to make an impact. We can show the world how important Joel was to us. Loving him and losing him was the richest part of our life so far.”
“It’s just meant to share something, share a moment I think every parent can relate to. Life is not just one thing. It’s not all the wins. It’s the bitter and the sweet.”