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Linus Tech Tips coverage of PAX 2013 is brought to you by Western Digital,

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Intel, and Steel Series. Hey guys, I'm here again at the Indie

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Mega booth at That Dragon Cancer. And

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this is kind of something really different. This isn't something

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that I've seen on the floor. This isn't even something that I've really seen in

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a video game very often. And yeah, I I

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think that's it for me. What can you tell me about this game?

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Well, um, my wife Amy and I have four

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sons. Um, and our third son Joel uh has

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terminal cancer and we've been fighting that for the past three almost four

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years. And so this story uh is about him

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and it's about the roller coaster that's our life and and the hope that can be

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found the hope that we found in them in the shadow of death.

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Wow. That's it. It it is that deep. He's not just exaggerating. I have played

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through the game. It is quite a moving experience. Um how how do you go through

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this game this story? Well, um this first demo scene takes

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place in a hospital and um it retells a

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night that I actually spent with Joel um right after they told us that he was

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terminal uh and they had started palative treatment. Um he had gotten a

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stomach bug and so he was hospitalized for dehydration. And so this kind of

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compresses that six or seven hours that I spent with him not not being able to

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calm him, you know, like not being able to do anything to help him and uh the

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helplessness that I felt in that. Um but then also the grace that I saw

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uh at the end. And so like um that's

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what this that's what this particular scene is.

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I hate this room. I didn't used to.

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For um for a moment, it was an

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adventure. I was cast as the

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compassionate and caring father. Hold up

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with his fragile son in a small clif in the rocks. The storm raging, waves

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ripping at the sharp black rocks below. And enveloped in my arms, he feels safe.

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you really just um you're kind of in my head and you're also kind of outside of

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outside of me and uh as I'm kind of stuck in this hotel room with my son.

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It's really interesting uh playing through that scene because you feel

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really connected uh as a player with the situation. I know I know you were

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actually in the situation, but as a player, it's it's obviously not the same

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thing, but you can feel a little bit of empathy for the situation. And then one

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thing, this obviously won't be in in the game, but in the play test that I just

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had, there's the picture of you and your son right to the left. And I felt myself

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referencing that picture throughout the playthrough because it's just it's so

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deep and you do really feel that connection. And it's it's it's a

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completely different thing because it's a true story and because it's coming directly from you. You can tell that

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it's just there's that much power behind it.

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I just want him to feel better.

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It's okay, Jolie.

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It's really, really interesting game. Is there anything else you can add?

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Um, well, you know, I just I'm I'm a pretty proud father, you know, and like

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I put the pictures there because I want people to know that who he is. is and

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that picture was taken 2 weeks ago. And I want them to know how beautiful he is

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and just how sweet he is. And um and so

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I also want people to know that this comes from a very real place for us. I

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mean this is something where my wife and I decided that we were going to approach

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this project with our dev partners um uh

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in the middle of our experience, you know, and um to me that was really

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important because I think a lot of times when you approach hard things from uh

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afterwards, you know, you have a tendency to like oversimplify those

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things that you went through and when you try to pass them on to people, they come off as like laws and rules about

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how you're supposed to live, right? And so like for us there's a very important

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part of being in the journey and and and choosing to walk that with other people

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because you know there's thousands and thousands of people here and they all

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have their own pain and that pain is very real to them. You know it's not

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something we can compare and I just want to give them a a hand and say hey I have

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like just a sliver of experience and I I

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I have an idea of what you might be going through in a very small way. So,

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and that's it's it's I'm I'm very happy that you have found a way to be able to

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develop this while going through it because you're sharing an experience

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with many people that can't actually feel it, but this is the closest they

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will possibly ever be able to be most likely ever be able to be.

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Bounce around.

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Is that funny? A bounce. A bunch. A

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bounce. Bounce. Bounce.

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How will someone be able to get this game? Well, so you know, we kind of

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poured our life savings into into doing this, right? And so, uh, and then we

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kind of ran out of money. So, uh, what happened was is Ouya stepped up with an

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investment and and that allows us to like really commit to this project

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full-time and be able to support and love my family, you know, at the same

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time. And so, it's like, yeah, it's like a real blessing. And it's it's just tremendously awesome of

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them to step up and do that because they believe that what we're doing should be

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done, you know, and so we're going to come to Ouya first next year,

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right? Um and then after that, we'll see where we go. Great. So if you don't have an Ouya yet,

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definitely check that out. And if you can't check that out, just wait because

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you should definitely try this game. It is a really big experience. It's totally

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surreal. Thank you for developing this game. Thank you for showing me this

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game. If you want to see all the rest of our packs content, be sure to subscribe

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to Linus Tech Tips.