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Documentary Follows Parents Making Video Game About Child's Cancer

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That Dragon, Cancer is an unusual video game that tracks the story of Amy and Ryan Green's son Joel who was diagnosed with cancer when he was one year old. It's inspired all sorts of responses in the media, from tearful YouTubers to confessional newspaper journalists, but there's one response that is winning awards itself.

Thank You For Playing is a feature film directed and produced by David Osit and Malika Zouhali-Worrall. As they describe it, the film "follows Ryan and his family over two years, offering an intimate, revolutionary glimpse into how the fusion of art and technology - in this case, a video game - can document profound human experiences in the modern age."

The film currently has a Kickstarter project where not only can you purchase and watch it but in doing so support it coming to theaters and a wider audience. If you've played That Dragon, Cancer or have an interest in games as an art form I'd encourage you to find out more on the Kickstarter page.

As you can see in the video, I recently spoke to David Osit and Malika Zouhali-Worrall to find out more about how they came to make the documentary and what insights they could offer into the growing phenomenon of That Dragon, Cancer.

David described what first caught his attention about the Green's project. "People in western society don't talk about these experiences as openly as you would expect. But [The Greens] wanted to start conversations with people about having a family member who is terminally ill, rather than it being privatized."

I asked Malika whether she's seen the game well supported from an early stage, or if that was only happening now it was finished. "The indie game community is a nurturing and accepting world" she said, "there's this acceptance of difference that is radical. Ryan and Amy are Christians and for them it was importance to include that in the game. It was interesting to see how much acceptance of this there was for folks who weren't religious themselves but were able to recognize this was part of Ryan and Amy's identity."

Certainly, gamers are often attuned to detecting any ideology in the medium and reacting against it. I've come across that myself in comments on some of my features on the game, but largely the support outweighs the naysayers.

"There was a really special story happening here" David chips in, "not just about a guy making a video-game about his child but also the idea of connectivity and how we learn to talk about difficult emotions, and the spaces we choose to talk about those emotions. In this case the space was a video-game -- a rarefied space for talking about how you feel."

It's true, games are still largely consider as sites of entertainment rather than education or reflection. Whether they are really art or not is still up for debate in many quarters. "The film is about the role that art plays in our lives" Malika reflected. "About a video-game challenging the boundaries of what games can be and do. But ultimately it examines why we as humans have art so central to our lives, a way to express and explore some of the most difficult experiences in our lives."

For me this is why the film and the game are so fascinating. They both avoid being overly pleased with the novelty of what they have created and move on to reflect more deeply on what these new experiences may mean for broader human existence.

Games offer new ways to make sense of the world, both its joys and its pain. David wants to refine that definition though. "It's more an invitation to think about the way we go through the process of grief and how art is a proxy, and has been through history, to deal with the things that are impossible to deal with through life."

I ask how this relates to religion and faith. Historically this has been a place to process loss and a context for artistic expression. "Faith, historically, is another way to accept things that are unacceptable and explain things that are otherwise explainable" David continues. "To be able to create this video-game for the Green family is also a way to have some control, similar to the control that religion provides. Or as Ryan and Amy would say 'to surrender that control a bit and accept grace was important for them'."

Listening the David's insights into the Green's situation it's clear that to have created the game without including their Christian faith would have been difficult, if not impossible. As David puts it, "the Green's faith is essential to their life, especially with the idea of family and what happens to loved ones when they die. Particularly when it comes to how we remember and memorialize them."

Malika sums up what the game offers to players and how their documentary benefited from this same generosity. "For the Greens the creation of this work of art is a means of sharing and not having things bottled up. Ryan and Amy were also willing to open up to us. This included their doubts around making the work of art, and also quandaries about why this was happening in the context of their faith. Why is my child dying and what is going to happen to my child after they die. A lot of these issues are relevant to audiences who aren't religious at all."

As we draw our conversation to a close I'm itching to go and share both the game and the film with friends and family -- both religious and non-religious and gamers and non-gamers. Unusually this is something I think would appeal to all of them.

More details available on the Thank You For Playing website and its Kickstarter page.

More details about the game on the That Dragon, Cancer website.

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