Ben's Game

Infobox VG
title = Ben's Game


developer = Eric Johnston
publisher = Make-A-Wish Foundation
distributor =
designer = Ben Duskin
Eric Johnston
engine =
version = 4
released =
genre = Therapeutic action game
modes = single player
ratings =
platforms = Windows and Mac
media = download
requirements =
input =
preceded by =
followed by =

"Ben's Game" is a video game about fighting cancer.

The game was conceptualised by Ben Duskin—an 8 year old American boy in remission from Leukemia. When interviewed by Make-A-Wish, he asked to design a video game to help other children endure cancer treatments. He remembered his oncologist telling him to visualize chemotherapy eating cancer cells and came up with the idea to create a video game. Eric Johnston, a software engineer from LucasArts created the game. It is freeware, available in Mac and PC formats, multilingual (9 languages) and can be downloaded on-line. Duskin and Johnston were awarded the "Unsung Hero of Compassion" by the Dalai Lama on 6 November 2005. Ben got cancer twice.

Theme

With a child patient as the hero miniaturized to microscopic 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. Each shield is guarded by a "monster" -- an incarnation of one of those side effects.

Three health levels serve as ammunition in the game:
* Health that the child gets from the hospital.
* Ammo the child gets from the pharmacy.
* The attitude the child gets from home.

Gameplay

The gameplay can be described as a Three-dimensional version of "Asteroids" , but instead of a ship, the player character is the child patient on a hoverboard. The left and right arrow keys spin the direction of the ship, the upper accelerates it and the down brakes. There are 4 types of weaponry available: Sword, Crossbow, Blaster and Missile, each of them having different types of projectiles; However, the player also has built-in ammo.

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

External links

* [http://www.makewish.org/site/pp.asp?c=cvLRKaO4E&b=64401 Ben's Game - Make-a-Wish] — Official site hosted by the San Francisco/Greater Bay Area Chapter of Make-A-Wish Foundation)
* [http://www.wish.org Make-A-Wish Foundation of America]
* [http://www.makewish.org Greater Bay Area Make-A-Wish Foundation]
*moby game|id=/bens-game|name="Ben's Game"