That Dragon, Cancer - A journey with a family dealing with cancer - PAX 2013
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
1,167 words · ~5 min read
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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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