That Dragon Cancer: Am Emotional Rollercoaster

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After hearing from several people about the award-winning game, That Dragon, Cancer and how incredible it was, I decided to play it myself. Although the topic of this game is about cancer, it still applies to almost every person regardless if you or someone you are close to has had cancer. It’s the story of a boy, Joel, who battled cancer at an extremely early age. It’s told primarily through the voice of his father and through breathtaking imagery. It’s an enlightening experience that can’t be compared to any other game I’ve ever played. That Dragon, Cancer has been out for over a year, I had been wanting to play it for some time but I wanted to make sure I was ready for the journey it would take me on. Now, I’m not going to talk about anything personal regarding the topic of the game, but I will do my best to explain how it impacted me in the best way that I can. This will also be a little different than most of my posts because I won’t be writing about what happens in the story. I truly believe that if after reading this you have an urge to give it a try yourself, then you should absolutely give the game a try and enjoy it for yourself.

With such a difficult story to tell, the creators of the game including Joel’s family, had an arduous task to complete. I mean this both in emotional and in developmental standpoints. To sit down and create this experience you yourself just went through, takes an immense amount of courage. However, a story like this is one that I believe most people can relate with and benefit from. It’s a story of loss, love and peace. Everyone has felt these emotions countless times in their lives, we’ve all lost someone close to us, whether it was from cancer or something else.

That Dragon, Cancer is a game that resonates with anyone who plays it, giving it the ability to connect the player with Joel and his family through compassion and understanding. In several sections of the game I ended up reaching the point of tears, both from sadness and joy. The artistic aspects weave together with a brilliant storytelling experience that you can’t help but relate with. It’s rare that a game gets me to that point and the ones that do have given me memories that I will likely never forget.

The game itself plays more like a movie, you don’t have control of how the plot unfolds, it has one outcome. There are specific items and events you can interact with but for the most part you’re simply along for the ride. That could be a downside to many, but I believe that there isn’t a better way to get you to connect with the game than that. Also, since the dad of the boy in the story was one of the developers of this game, he would likely know how best to tell the story of his son.

Going back to my experience with the game and how it impacted me, I can say that by the end it brought me a sense of solace. I can’t go into detail as to why this is for personal reasons, but it helped me feel better and I felt relieved as well. There is a sense of closure that is felt as well, both in the story and for me personally when I finished the game. This isn’t to say that parts of it weren’t hard to handle, but by the end I was in a much better place about parts of my life than I was before I started.

There were sections of the game that were so intense that it brought me to a point where I almost stopped playing. Two of the scenes in That Dragon, Cancer were extremely difficult to play. but I’m glad that I pushed through those experiences because I had to get passed them. It’s likely that if you do play this game, you might encounter a similar urge to stop. Although this may sound unpleasant it isn’t at all. When I played through these sections it may have been difficult, but they were worth getting through. These experiences I had will likely resonate the most with me when I look back on my playthrough in the future. They were the most important parts of my journey and helped for me to understand more about why this game was so important for me and for others to play.

This was my most difficult playthrough of any game and my most challenging post to write. Like I said in the beginning, I can’t say why this game struck so close to home for me, but I can say it helped me grow from the experience. I hope that my explanation of how That Dragon, Cancer made me feel can push you to give it a chance. I can’t stress the significance of this game enough to anyone who has lost someone close to them. If you have, please hear me out and experience the game for yourself.