Ben's Game

Lore & Background

Ben Duskin, an 8-year-old American boy in remission from leukemia, wished to design a video game in which cancer cells were eaten, inspired by his oncologist's advice to think of chemotherapy as eating cancer cells. The Make-A-Wish Foundation initially faced rejections from gaming companies, who cited costs of up to US$1,000,000 and years of development. After posting the request on gaming sites, offers came from designers in the UK, Israel, Canada, and the United States. Eric Johnston, a software engineer from LucasArts, met with Ben weekly for six months to create the game, with Ben's pediatric oncologist serving as medical adviser on condition that UCSF Children's Hospital be the first to install it.

Reader's Guide

Ben's Game is a three-dimensional version of Asteroids where the player character is a child patient on a hoverboard, tasked with destroying mutated cells and collecting seven shields against chemotherapy side effects. Each shield is guarded by a monster representing a side effect, such as the Iceman (colds) or Qball (hair loss). The player never loses or dies. The game features 12 characters, 6 boards, a character/board creation tool using JPEG files, camera control, and two-player mode. Launched in May 2004, it was downloaded over 300,000 times by September 2009. It is freeware for Mac and Windows, multilingual (9 languages), and was awarded the 'Unsung Hero of Compassion' by the Dalai Lama in 2005. In 2007, another wish child, Jericho Rajninger, was inspired to create J.R. the Robot, a medication-delivering robot for hospitals.

Did You Know?

• Ben's Game was conceptualized by an 8-year-old boy in remission from leukemia.
• The game includes seven monsters representing chemotherapy side effects, such as the Robarf monster for vomiting and nausea.
• Eric Johnston, a LucasArts software engineer, met with Ben weekly for six months to develop the game.
• Ben's Game was awarded the 'Unsung Hero of Compassion' by the Dalai Lama in 2005.

Origin & the Road to Creation

In 2003, eight-year-old Ben Duskin, an American boy in remission from leukemia, conceived a video game that would let other children picture themselves as heroes battling cancer. His oncologist had encouraged him to imagine chemotherapy as eating cancer cells, and that image became the seed of his wish. Make-A-Wish Foundation took up the cause, but initial outreach to gaming companies met with refusals. Executive Director Patricia Wilson was told such a project would demand over a million dollars and potentially years of work. Rather than accept that, she posted the request on several gaming websites. Responses poured in from designers in the United Kingdom, Israel, Canada, and the United States. A Bay Area developer offered to lead the entire design on one condition: he would meet Ben and work alongside him directly. That developer was Eric Johnston, a software engineer at LucasArts. Over six months of weekly sessions, the two built the game together. Ben's pediatric oncologist served as medical adviser, with the stipulation that UCSF Children's Hospital be the first facility to install the finished product for young patients to play.

Gameplay & the Philosophy of Never Losing

The game casts the player as a child patient shrunk to microscopic scale, riding a hoverboard through the interior of their own body. The controls mirror a three-dimensional take on Asteroids: left and right arrows rotate the direction of travel, up accelerates, and down applies the brakes. Four distinct weapons—Sword, Crossbow, Blaster, and Missile—each fire different projectile types, and the player carries built-in ammunition. The central objective is to destroy every mutated cell in the environment. Woven into that goal are seven shields, each guarding against a specific chemotherapy side effect and protected by a named monster: Iceman for colds, Robarf for vomiting and nausea, Big Chicken for chicken pox, Fire for fever, Vamp for bleeding, Qball for hair loss, and Tornado for rash. The ammunition system itself carries meaning: health replenishes from a hospital, ammo from a pharmacy, and attitude from home. A defining design choice ensures the player character is never defeated or eliminated. The game also includes camera control, a two-player mode, twelve selectable characters, six boards, and a creation tool that lets players swap in their own JPEG textures and silhouette masks to build new characters and boards.

Release, Accessibility & Recognition

Launched in May 2004 and published by the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Ben's Game was distributed as freeware for both Mac and Windows platforms. Its accessibility was a deliberate priority: the game supported nine languages, broadening its reach well beyond English-speaking audiences, and was made available as a free online download for a period of time. By September 2009, the title had been downloaded more than 300,000 times by players around the world—a remarkable figure for a project born from a single child's wish. Recognition followed quickly. On November 6, 2005, Ben Duskin and Eric Johnston were jointly awarded the "Unsung Hero of Compassion" title by the Dalai Lama, a distinction that highlighted not just the game's technical achievement but its humanitarian purpose. The fact that a project initially dismissed as costing over a million dollars and taking years was delivered through six months of focused collaboration, and then given away freely to children and families everywhere, underscored the power of community-driven development. The game's multilingual, cross-platform, no-cost distribution model ensured that the message of empowerment could travel far beyond the hospital rooms where it was first intended to play.

Legacy & the Ripple of One Wish

Ben's Game proved that a single child's imagination could reshape how a foundation approached its mission. The game's core design principle—that the player character is never defeated or eliminated—sent a quiet but powerful message to every child who picked up a controller in a hospital waiting room: you are the hero, and the story always bends in your favor. That philosophy left a lasting mark on the Make-A-Wish community. In 2007, another wish child named Jericho Rajninger, inspired directly by Ben and his game, chose to channel his own wish toward helping other young patients. Jericho's wish materialized as J.R. the Robot, a device designed to deliver medication to children in hospital settings. The trajectory from one eight-year-old's idea to a second child's wish demonstrates how Ben's Game operated not merely as a product but as a proof of concept: that children could be creators, not just recipients, of the tools that helped them cope. The game's free, multilingual distribution and its origin story—initially rejected by industry, then built through a volunteer's dedication and a boy's weekly sessions—became a reference point for what compassionate, community-driven development could achieve in the gaming world.

Gallery