How making a video game about a child’s cancer diagnosis helped a father grieve

How making a video game about a child’s cancer diagnosis helped a father grieve

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A scene from the documentary “Thank You For Playing.” The film is directed and produced by David Osit & Malika Zouhali-Worrall.

Discovering that your young child is seriously ill is a scenario that fills every parent with dread. For some families, it’s a reality that they’re forced to deal with.

In 2010, Joel Evan Green was diagnosed with brain cancer. He was just one year old at the time.

His parents, Ryan and Amy, did what many parents would do in that situation— they ached, they cried, they prayed. But then they did something different. They built a video game about their experience.

A new documentary titled “Thank You For Playing” recounts the development of the game, called “That Dragon, Cancer.”

Thank You For Playing (2016) - Official Trailer from Thank You For Playing on Vimeo.

Ryan Green joined Take Two to talk about how he came up with the idea to create a computer game about his family’s experience and how it helped him get some distance from and then process his grief.

To hear the full interview, click the blue player above.