That Dragon, Cancer

This poetic and playful game was designed by the father of Joel Green, a little boy who died at the age of four from the many brain tumors that began to afflict him in his first year of life. The Green family’s personal chronicle is a love letter to their son, who is gone but far from forgotten. The game proposes new ways of mourning. We see the family at the hospital, in the living room and whiling away lazy days at the playground. We hear Joel’s laughter somewhere in the distance. The player wanders calmly through their daily lives and is confronted along the way with the choices they had to make. Click on elements in the game world to activate interactions and dialogue such as a voicemail message from Joel’s mother Amy. Their memoires recall how Ryan and Amy embraced hope in the face of death. Thousands of people sent them photos of their own sick or dying child, and this underlines the emotional potency of the story and its subtle handling of life, death, faith, hope and sorrow. It serves as a memorial to all those children. IDFA screened Thank You for Playing, the making-of documentary.

This project is available in multiple versions.