''Ben's Game'' is a video game about fighting

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal bl ...

. The game was conceptualised in 2003 by Ben Duskin—an 8 year old American boy in remission from

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ...

—and was published by the

Make-A-Wish Foundation The Make-A-Wish Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in the United States that helps fulfill the wishes of children with a critical illness between the ages of and 18 years old. Make-A-Wish was founded in 1980 and headquar ...

in 2004.

Plot

With a child

patient A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other health ...

as the

hero A hero (feminine: heroine) is a real person or a main fictional character who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or strength. Like other formerly gender-specific terms (like ''actor''), ''hero ...

miniaturized Miniaturization ( Br.Eng.: ''Miniaturisation'') is the trend to manufacture ever smaller mechanical, optical and electronic products and devices. Examples include miniaturization of mobile phones, computers and vehicle engine downsizing. In e ...

microscopic The microscopic scale () is the scale of objects and events smaller than those that can easily be seen by the naked eye, requiring a lens or microscope to see them clearly. In physics, the microscopic scale is sometimes regarded as the scale be ...

level adventuring inside the child's own body, the object is to destroy all cancer cells and to collect the seven shields against common

side effects of chemotherapy Chemotherapy (often abbreviated to chemo and sometimes CTX or CTx) is a type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs (chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) as part of a standardized chemotherapy regimen. Chemotherap ...

. Each shield is guarded by a "monster"—an

incarnation Incarnation literally means ''embodied in flesh'' or ''taking on flesh''. It refers to the conception and the embodiment of a deity or spirit in some earthly form or the appearance of a god as a human. If capitalized, it is the union of divinit ...

of one of those side effects. The game was designed so that the player character never loses or dies.

Gameplay

The gameplay can be described as a three-dimensional version of ''

Asteroids An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...

'', but instead of a ship, the

player character A player character (also known as a playable character or PC) is a fictional character in a video game or tabletop role-playing game whose actions are controlled by a player rather than the rules of the game. The characters that are not control ...

is the child patient on a

hoverboard A hoverboard (or hover board) is a levitating board used for personal transportation, first described in science-fiction, and made famous by the appearance of a skateboard-like hoverboard in the film '' Back to the Future Part II''. Many attempt ...

. The left and right

arrow keys Arrow keys or cursor movement keys are buttons on a computer keyboard that are either programmed or designated to move the cursor in a specified direction. The term "cursor movement key" is distinct from "arrow key" in that the former term may ...

spin the direction of the ship, the up arrow accelerates and the down brakes. There are 4 weapons available: Sword, Crossbow, Blaster and Missile, each of them having different types of projectiles. The player also has built-in ammo. The game objective is to destroy all of the mutated cells. In addition, there are seven shields. Each shield protects against one of the common side effects of chemotherapy and is guarded by a "monster" that represents that side effect. The seven monsters and side effects are as follows: Iceman monster (colds), Robarf monster (vomiting and nausea), Big Chicken monster (

chicken pox Chickenpox, also known as varicella, is a highly contagious disease caused by the initial infection with varicella zoster virus (VZV). The disease results in a characteristic skin rash that forms small, itchy blisters, which eventually scab ...

), Fire monster (fever), Vamp monster (bleeding), Qball monster (hair loss), and the Tornado monster (rash.) The player's ammunition consists of health (which comes from a hospital), ammo (which comes from a pharmacy), and attitude (which comes from home.) The game also features camera control and a two-player mode. There are 12 characters and 6 boards available, however, it has a character/board creation feature, as the textures (and their "masks", which are white silhouettes that cut the black area, leaving only the character image to be seen) are normal

JPEG JPEG ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and im ...

files that can be copied and edited, to make new characters and/or boards.

Development

When interviewed by Make-A-Wish, Ben's wish was to design a video game in which cancer cells were eaten to help other children visualize fighting their cancer and help them to cope with cancer treatments. He remembered his oncologist telling him to think of chemotherapy as eating cancer cells. When Make-A-Wish first approached gaming companies - their requests to help create a cancer-fighting video game were denied.

Make-a-Wish The Make-A-Wish Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in the United States that helps fulfill the wishes of children with a critical illness between the ages of and 18 years old. Make-A-Wish was founded in 1980 and headqua ...

Executive Director Patricia Wilson was told that a video game would take upwards of US$1,000,000 and possibly years to create. Ms. Wilson sought the help of her Board of Directors and within days the request to fulfill Ben's wish was posted on several gaming sites. Inquiries and offers to assist began immediately from game designers in the UK, Israel, Canada and the United States. One particular offer came from a Bay Area game designer who offered to spearhead the entire game design on one condition: that he have a chance to meet and work with Ben directly. Eric Johnston, a

software engineer Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development. A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term ''p ...

from

LucasArts Lucasfilm Games (known as LucasArts between 1990 and 2021) is an American video game licensor that is part of Lucasfilm. It was founded in May 1982 by George Lucas as a video game development group alongside his film company; as part of a large ...

met with Ben weekly for 6 months and together, they created Ben's Game. Ben's own pediatric oncologist served as medical adviser for the game upon condition that

UCSF Children's Hospital UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital is a children's hospital system in San Francisco, California, subordinate to the University of California, San Francisco. It has four campuses: the Parnassus Campus, the Mount Zion Campus, and the Mission Bay Campu ...

be the first medical facility to have the game installed for children to play. The game was launched in May 2004 and as of September 2009, the game has been downloaded over 300,000 times by people all over the world. Ben's Game is

freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for t ...

, available for Mac and Windows systems, and is multilingual (with support for 9 languages.) The game was made available online for free download for a period of time. Duskin and Johnston were awarded the "Unsung Hero of Compassion" by the Dalai Lama on 6 November 2005.

Legacy

In 2007 another wish child, Jericho Rajninger, was inspired by Ben and Ben's Game and decided to use his wish to help other children as well. Jericho's wish, J.R. the Robot, delivers medication to children in the hospital.

References

External links

''Ben's Game''
Make-a-Wish *{{moby game, id=/bens-game, name=''Ben's Game'' Cancer in fiction Windows games MacOS games Children's educational video games Human body in popular culture Medical video games 2004 video games Video games developed in the United States Video games about children Video games about microbes Video games about size change Video games scored by Ellen Meijers