'That Dragon, Cancer' shows toddler's fight for life

DENVER — Ryan Green didn't become noticeably emotional when I asked about what he would wish for his dying son, but I did.

"What is your hope for your son?" I asked, my voice almost imperceptibly cracking, betraying the hole that had formed in the wall I'd put up to protect myself during the interview. I've asked that question in some form maybe a hundred times. It's one of my least favorites because it has the most obvious answer: What parent wouldn't want a miracle for his terminally ill 4-year-old? But the Greens have already seen their share of miracles.

"My hope for my son is that he will experience even more miracles than we have already, and that he will live a long life. That's my hope," Ryan told me. "My hope also is that if he passes on we'll see him again. So in either circumstance we have hope, and I think that is the beautiful thing about faith."

A programmer and game developer by trade, Ryan wanted to find a way to share that message with others. So he created a video game: "That Dragon, Cancer." It's an adventure game that is more like a poetic struggle, a re-creation of Ryan and Amy's fight for their son's life, of the events that can bring a person to the depths of despair before blinding him with the light of pure grace.

Faith, and their belief in grace, is what has kept the Green family going for the past three years, ever since their son Joel was diagnosed with AT/RT, a rare type of tumor with a 10-percent two-year survival rate. Three months before his second birthday, Joel was given between a few weeks and four months to live.

Twenty-seven months later, he's still alive.

After eight tumors, months of chemotherapy and countless prayers, he's still alive. He's not expected to go back into remission, but he's still alive, and for his parents, every new day is new miracle.

Reflecting on their challenges over the past few years, Ryan paraphrased a Psalm for me.

"A lot of times I talk about when you're in the valley of the shadow of death, of fearing no evil, of not being scared of death anymore," he said. "And I think a lot of people live their lives being afraid of death, but at the same time, whether you have cancer and you have a terminal prognosis, or tomorrow there's a car accident, nobody is guaranteed the next day."

"That Dragon, Cancer" is meant to be a hopeful game. The game player sees the world through the eyes of Ryan as he fights for his son — to save his life, and later to bring him comfort as the tumors keep returning.

The game takes place in the ICU, as much of Ryan's life has over the past few years. As in any point-and-click adventure game, players sometimes find themselves clicking in frustrated circles, trying to find anything that will move them one step further in the game. One step closer to helping Joel beat the dragon.

Players encounter some of Ryan's darkest moments — moments that could be taking place at any hospital in the world at any given moment. A sick child lying in a hospital bed, crying because he hurts. An exhausted parent trying everything there is to do to make it stop, finally, in the most painful of moments, realizing there is no way to make it stop.

"A lot of times you feel like, ‘If I just do this one thing, if I could just figure out how to fix it, then everything will be OK,' " Ryan said. "And for me that night, peace only came when I surrendered and when I rested, and I think that's a key element to faith: that we feel like when we flail, we can a lot of times do more harm than good, but when we rest, we let God do what he's going to do."

In the game, as in reality, there are eventually no more choices. The players can pray, or they can give up. They are emotionally invested, though, at that point, and it isn't so easy to just flip the switch and come back to reality.

Video games are powerful, Ryan told me. They put the player in the shoes of the creator. They force the player to see things as they would be experienced in reality, instead of allowing the art to be experienced from an omnipotent position above. And in video games, like in choose-your-own-ending novels, it is the player who has the agency, not the creator. That's why "That Dragon, Cancer," is so powerful.

"By allowing the player to be immersed in our situation, they empathize in a new way that's different than if they were just watching a movie about the same story," Ryan said.

He told me in our society, we don't like to talk about the hard things. We avoid the dark moments that try our souls, wishing instead to put those times behind us and move on with our lives. But they're there, in the backs of our minds, and sometimes in being brought forward, they bring us peace.

In that sense, "That Dragon, Cancer," is a story of hope, not of tragedy. It's about looking a monster in the eye and saying, "I know what you are, but I'm not afraid." It's a game about survival.

Ryan is hopeful. I may have been struggling to hold myself together while thinking of a sick little boy who just won't give up, but Ryan spoke with the clarity and understanding of someone who has been dragged through hell and lived to tell about it.

He told me that more than anything, he hopes his son will live a long life. But he also understands the inevitability of his death — of all of our deaths — and turns to God to hold him up when it feels as though there is nothing left to keep him standing. He said he hopes that understanding and faith can help parents going through the same earth-shattering, heartbreaking trials he and his wife, Amy, have had to face.

"I think a lot of times when people imagine going through really difficult things in life, they imagine going through it without the grace and peace that God gives," Ryan said when I asked what kept him hopeful after all this time. "I think for us, being Christians, we believe that there is hope after death, but that also there is hope in this life for miraculous things."

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