Inside the game, the goal is to fight cancer and outside the game, the goal is the same. Developed by the non-profit organization HopeLab the game is called “Re-Mission.”

“It’s a video game designed specifically for teens and young adults with cancer,” says Pat Christen of CEO, HopeLab. “The kids who play this game, we've actually found in studying it, gain a real sense of power and control over their disease. It is very effective in supporting these kids, in supporting their treatment adherence, in increasing their cancer knowledge and really gives them control over their fight against cancer.”

But how does it do all that?

“The game itself is a third person shooter and you navigate Roxxi, a microscopic nanobot that's inside the human body and she is there to help fight cancer, to vanquish the disease,” says Christen. “She has an arsenal available to her as you would have in fighting cancer in real life, so chemotherapy, antibiotics to battle infections, she has to deal with making sure that the temperature in the person's body doesn’t get too high, so you have all those weapons available to you. There are many different individuals, young people in the game with different types of cancer. That helps the player who may also have cancer be able to identify with the particular disease.”

Developers say in creating the title, they made sure to make it as fun as possible, as accurate as possible, and as empowering as possible.

“Cell biologists, oncologists, patients themselves with cancer, gamers — all of those folks were consulted at length in the development of this game,” says Christen. “And we used a randomized control trial to demonstrate that this game really helped these kids fight the disease. So we've created an evidence base that video game technology, when rationally engineered, can do great good in the lives of young people.”

HopeLab says Remission is actually just the first game of many to come all focusing around pressing issues and diseases facing young people.

“So in addition to cancer, we're taking on obesity, we’ll be looking at sickle cell disease, major depressive disorder, and autism as well,” says Christen.

If in the meantime you or someone you know might light to give “Re-Mission” a try, it's for PCs only. It’s available at HopeLab.org as a free download, but there is a suggested donation of $20, if you're playing purely for fun — in other words, not fighting cancer in the real world.

— Adam Balkin