well, it is then maybe not correct to just blame the developers?

gOg accepts the game - yay, good developers
gOg rejects the game - boo, bad developers...

not saying this is the case here, but you never know.

I think you missed the point entirely or maybe I wasn't clear enough.

The developer is playing the sympathy card and using his child's death as a tool for more financial gain.

He is trying to guilt people into buying his shite for a game.

He claims to be all innocent and religious but he is a crafty, manipulative man.

I hope this crap does NOT end up on gog.

I know. Games can never be art, and should not deal with difficult subject. If they do, the game maker (he can not be an artist, because... you know... it cant be art) should only deal with a subject he (or she, god forbid) is detached from.

But, can it still be art if the Game Police gives it the verdict of "not a game"?

off course not. There is clear definitions of what a game is. If it fall outside these parameters, it is a non-entity and should be ignored and/or taunted.

Art is... you know.... paintings of apples or those crying children.... or good poems, you know, those who rhyme.

Yes, we would.

EDIT: sorry, I mean yes many of us Steam-0exclusive devs would love to release on GOG. Looks like I'm one of the assholes that completely missed this the first time around. Really sorry to hear about that, and my prayers definitely go out to you (or "supportive thoughts" if you'd prefer :D)
Amen, brother, enough with all these attempts at insight, depth, and artistic exploration. It's ruining gaming, I tell you!

What a jerk! :)

No, seriously. I wasn't looking for attention, just trying to say that for me with my experiences, that game might be good.

My son will be just fine. He has a painful road, but he'll almost definitely live through it. Many parents are not so lucky.

(and prayers and kindness are always appreciated :D)

-skip through the pages-

Haven't played the game but i don't see what the big deal is.

There are worst storyline and gameplay than that.

And there's "novel" as in books with story on it, which some captures real life experience.

Just to drive home the point you're all (with a few notable exceptions) making:

[initiate sarcasm] Yeah, just like Steven Spielberg should never have been involved with "Schindler's List", because he made money from making a film about the Holocaust, when he actually had relatives who died during it! How horribly manipulative! It wasn't really a Spielberg movie because it wasn't an action-adventure, anyhow! And what's with all the outdated black-and-white, dem graphics man! [/end sarcasm]

I've got my own issues with my son, which im not really wanting to go into on such a public forum.
But yes, it does teach you humility and absolute pure terror (actual terror, not the made-up stuff fox sells) to know that at any minute you could lose your son. It's not joyful. It's not a release to see your son in pain and know there is a very real possibility of him not being there in the morning.
For me to see someone finding joy in a childs death, even as a coping mechanism, is creepy, and that will always be my opinion. They can feel the way they want. I can feel that it's creepy.

I don't think the death is the joyful part. It's the life before the death. It's the building of memories. It's the joy of each cherished moment before that fateful moment that finds us all. It's a recognition of our mortality, of our importance, and our love.

A co-worker lost her son today. That and this thread has me ready to go home and give my kiddos some hugs!

You are a bad, bad developer!

And really, we don't all cope with these things in the same way. These people were able to make a lasting legacy, in game / digital interaction form, of their child, and maybe they found some meaning to it all along the way.

Best of luck to your son. Sounds like a battle that's going to last quite a while yet, but it also sounds like he's in good hands.

*dog whine*

The problem with "interactive media" touching on a sensitive subject like this is that it seems to automatically develop a kind of "sympathy shield", a kind of immunity against criticism where critics of all flavours - both constructive and childish - are derided as being heartless bastards. And to be quite frank, childish twits like tort1234 give credibility to that view.

Now, I appreciate what Ryan Green tried to do here, and I admire his bravery and strength of will in trying to channel his experiences and feelings into a game. I've not played it myself yet, but I have watched gameplay videos and heard the more reasonable criticisms of overblown sentimentality with the silly mini-games. My takeaway from it all is this: as someone who has lost friends in childhood to cancer and remained close to the families, TDC's innocent sentimentality really doesn't seem to tally up with the bizarre reality of losing a child like that. It seems overly stark in its contrast between the innocence of childhood and family and the horrors of cancer and hospital treatment.

The death of a child is not something that you can turn into a tear-jerker with slow piano music - it unleashes a million different contradictory feelings that are very hard to describe and that invoke a kind of guilt in their own right, among them a guilty sense of relief that the stress of medical treatment is over and the deceased's pain has ended.

From what I've seen of TDC in gameplay videos, it seems to me that Green wanted to channel his experiences and feelings, struggled to do so (perfectly understandable), and simply adopted the route of excessive sentimentality in the hope that people would view his loss in the same way as they would a weepy tragedy film akin to My Sister's Keeper. I don't envy Ryan's struggle in trying to describe these feelings or abstract them in ludonarrative form - I certainly couldn't have done it - but I believe it's fair to say that TDC represents Ryan's unwillingness or inability to portray his real feelings and experiences.

Whether he should have charged money for this is of course going to be a topic of some contention. There is merit in the argument that if he designed this game to be a way of sharing his feelings, that it should have been free, and I can understand those that feel that charging for this is exploitative. That being said, it's reasonable to assume that Joel's medical care and death would place the family not only under immense emotional strain but also financial strain, and if the game helps to alleviate some of that burden, why not?

And if this post seems like I'm sitting firmly on the fence in this debate, it's because I am - I really have no opinion on whether this game should have been made and whether the Greens should have charged money on it. My only opinion is that the game represents Green taking an emotional distance from his audience, but even there, I have no opinion about whether this is a good or bad thing - it just is what it is.