More than that though, for Green video games offer an unique creative opportunity. ?They can do something that no other medium can, you can create this world and ask the player to live in it and love what you have created.? Green?s sentiments are echoed by fellow developer on the project, Josh Larson, ?I think video games have the potential to examine different parts of the human experience. Our interest is to explore deeper themes about grace and hope in the face of death. Video games seem like a unique opportunity to do that because the player has an element of free will or agency and then you as the creator also have a certain amount of sovereignty.?
If you?ve not picked up on it already, the language here is intentional and coming from a position of faith. But unlike some dialogues from ideological positions on difficult subjects, Green and Larson (like the game they are creating) are approachable and embracing of mystery. Rather than press-ganging technology into hard service of a particular faith perspective, the video-game is granted space to bring its own goods to the table.
In particular, the visual style and ephemeral tone of That Dragon, Cancer grants players the time and the wherewithal to reflect on what is happening. For Green this is integral to the game?s message of hope in dark places. ?I think as human beings we can do a lot of damage when we flail and think what do I have to do to ?fix this?. You can hurt the people around you by forcing them into decisions that they don?t have to make or to worry about things they don?t have to worry about.?
The trick, of course, is finding the resources in those moments of disaster to enable you to avoid this ?flailing?. That Dragon, Cancer seems to have the potential of contributing positively to this. Although drawing on the medium of books, poetry and films, its video-game nature makes it unique. The player finds themselves accidentally stumbling into the story, rather than being told about it or shown it. They piece this difficult reality together around themselves and become implicated in it.
It?s this, rather than his faith, that Green describes as raising most offence. ?I?ve not found anyone who has been offended by my theology. I think, more likely, it?s that I didn?t have permission to do what I did.? Although the clue is surely in the name, perhaps That Dragon, Cancer needs some kind of health warning as players fall into the experience before necessarily realising where it will lead them.
The overwhelming response is positive though, not least because this is very much Green?s life we are playing. His generosity in sharing it creates a space that is not only emotional but also grants the player authority to ask personal questions. As Green puts it ?more than anything, they identify in their own way ? everyone has been touched by cancer.?
It?s a space that opens the conversation rather than closes it. The nature of That Dragon, Cancer invites difficult questions rather than dissuades them with rehearsed answers. Perhaps it?s because of this that I feel able, however ill-advisedly, to ask Green whether for him God may potentially be to blame for some of this story or if that idea is off limits in the game.
His response is typically honest ?I?d like to hope that I?d never raise an accusation against God, I intend to look for the good story that?s being told in the midst of this. Joel?s not dead yet. I don?t know how the game will end, whether Joel will live or die or whether I won?t let the player know that. I?m aware that I don?t want to be glib or offer platitudes, so it?s this strange place of trying to be honest and trying to be faithful.?
On this basis That Dragon, Cancer is already a big success.
I?m looking forward to see how it develops in the long journey towards release and find myself praying with Green for his son, both in the game and in real life.
Andy Robertson is a freelance gaming expert and runs the the Family Gamer TV YouTube channel.
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