Kenny Roy, local founder/director of LA-based Arconyx Animation Studios, has a passion project — to finish developing his beautifully animated 3D Xbox adventure game “I, Hope” for kids with cancer.
“My game is the only game that completely takes this on,” Roy said. “And I am completely donating it to charity … The Child Life Programs at hospitals are all telling me that no one has ever thought of this before.”
The game will have two ways of helping kids with cancer in the hospital — it will give them something fun to do during the long hours of boredom, and it will also be a cathartic experience, since winning the game involves finding the weapons needed to defeat cancer.
“The science is in — studies have shown that positive outlooks during cancer treatment result in positive outcomes,” Roy said. And the “I, Hope” game is designed to instill a positive attitude in the child about being able to beat the disease.
“A lot of the public doesn’t realize that various games are already being used as therapeutic tools for children,” Roy said.
“I have a personal connection to games — I grew up in a gaming family,” he said. “My brothers and I settled our differences with games, and my parents also got involved. I understood from an early age how strong the gaming medium was.”
Roy experienced an early midlife crisis a couple of years ago. “What I was doing in animation wasn’t cutting it for me anymore — it wasn’t powerful enough on its own,” Roy said.
“I said, ‘I need to be making games and creating experiences,’ and I wanted my first game to have an impact,” Roy continued. “I thought, ‘Who needs an uplifting story right now?’ And I settled on kids with cancer.”
His mother, Meloney Roy, who has lived in Malibu for 12 years, was an influence when it came to his choice. She retired last year as Chief Deputy Director & Behavioral Health Director of Ventura County Health Care Agency. “I’ve been advising Kenny on the mental health perspective of kids struggling with life-threatening illnesses,” she wrote in a message to The Malibu Times.
The main character in the “I, Hope” game is a girl. Roy said he chose a female because “girls are marginalized in games, so I wanted my character to be a strong girl, but she has her weaknesses and works on them.”
In the game, she lives on a floating island, and a monster called “cancer” lands in her village. She must visit five other kingdoms to collect the weapons she needs to return and defeat cancer — knowledge, strength, courage, support and hope. On the journey she encounters puzzles, enemies and various hardships.
“There are no scores and no points,” Roy said. “You can’t lose.”
Roy visited dozens of hospitals to research his game.
“I was devastated and not prepared for the social and emotional issues that crop up [with hospitalized children],” he said. “Even if they beat cancer, they lose their childhood. Many of these heroic children feel they’re a burden to their families. They see their siblings sitting around the hospital and feel guilty. The game mirrors their real-world struggle.”
Roy will donate his “I, Hope” game to the nonprofit GameChanger, and also hopes to raise additional funds to make the game even better.
“With just my resources, the ‘I, Hope’ game will be a three-hour game. I’d like to turn the game into a 10-hour experience, and to have a cooperative multi-player mode, but I don’t have the budget,” he said.
Several companies have donated technologies and services that dramatically brought down the cost of development, including Anomalia, Xbox and Microsoft.
“Although it might normally cost $1 — $5 million to produce a game like this, I think I could do it for about $200,000,”he said. “It’s a passion for me, and I can’t do anything else until I get this done.”
Roy plans to release the game in April 2017, “no matter what,” but said he’s at a point where he needs to finalize whatever version he’ll end up with. “Funding means I can plan and schedule to hit that deadline with all those extra features I want.”
Roy’s animation experience, beginning in 1998, includes projects for TV, commercials, games, web, ride films and feature films including “Scooby Doo 2,” “Garfield” and “King Kong.” In 2006 he founded his own animation company, Arconyx, with clients that include Mattel, MTV, Nickelodeon and the Sci-Fi Channel.
To donate, contact Kenny Roy at 323.454.3020 or kenny@arconyx.com.
