Ideas worth spreading

A video game to cope with grief

1,806,623 views |

Amy Green |

TEDNYC

• February 2017

When Amy Green's young son was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor, she made up a bedtime story for his siblings to teach them about cancer. What resulted was a video game, "That Dragon, Cancer," which takes players on a journey they can't win. In this beautiful talk about coping with loss, Green brings joy and play to tragedy. "We made a game that's hard to play," she says, "because the hardest moments of our lives change us more than any goal we could ever accomplish."

When Amy Green's young son was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor, she made up a bedtime story for his siblings to teach them about cancer. What resulted was a video game, "That Dragon, Cancer," which takes players on a journey they can't win. In this beautiful talk about coping with loss, Green brings joy and play to tragedy. "We made a game that's hard to play," she says, "because the hardest moments of our lives change us more than any goal we could ever accomplish."

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Play That Dragon, Cancer on your computer or mobile device. You can download the video game to most newer phones or tablets, or you can download it onto your PC or MAC computer.

Help find a cure. Donate to research being done by Joel’s Neuro-Oncologist on ATRTs and other rare brain tumors. You can donate today to the Morgan Adams Foundation.

About the speaker

Amy Green

Video game designer

See speaker profile

Amy Green creates narrative video games that focus on innovative stories.

| Watch

Thank You for Playing

An independent documentary created by David Osit and Malika Zouhali-Worrall about our family and the making of That Dragon, Cancer.

| Article

"Playing for Time"

A long form article about the video game written by Jason Tanz for Wired Magazine.

Reply All | Listen

"The Cathedral"

A podcast created by Reply All that also aired on Radio Lab about the struggle we had finishing the video game.

| Book

The Problem of Pain

One of my favorite theological books, written by C. S. Lewis. This is the first book Ryan and I read together after Joel died. It wrestles with one of the greatest questions of faith: "How could a good God allow pain and suffering?"

Terrence Malick | Watch

A film created by Terrence Malick that artfully explores human suffering in the wake of eternity. This has always been a favorite film of my husband, Ryan Green. A shared love of Malick’s work unites our game development team, and the beautiful symbolic work in Tree of Life certainly inspired our approach to an autobiographical videogame about faith and suffering.

Mary Doria Russell | 1997 | Book

A very favorite book of mine. Mary Doria Russell wrestles with faith and suffering in the context of the silence of God, but within the genre most suited to all of humanity's greatest questions, science fiction. Ryan and I love this book and its sequel. We find reflections of ourselves in the questions it asks and the answers the characters reluctantly discover.

| Explore

A shining example of an autobiographical video game that explores a difficult topic. That Dragon, Cancer is not the first videogame to explore personal and challenging themes through game mechanics. We want people to know about the other great work being done within videogames. Vander Caballero, along with his team at Minority Media, created Papo & Yo as an exploration of his childhood overshadowed by his alcoholic father. This game is largely credited as creating a new genre of videogames and certainly paved the way for titles like That Dragon, Cancer.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Play That Dragon, Cancer on your computer or mobile device. You can download the video game to most newer phones or tablets, or you can download it onto your PC or MAC computer.

Help find a cure. Donate to research being done by Joel’s Neuro-Oncologist on ATRTs and other rare brain tumors. You can donate today to the Morgan Adams Foundation.