The video game that saved a man's life.
Let me tell you all about a man named Alfred Gamble.
This guy was a WW2 veteran and a retired truck driver.
On September 19th 1997, his wife died after a long illness, and then he lost his daughter in an accident, sending Gamble into a deep depression. He took out his old service revolver and decided to shoot himself in the head, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it.
He couldn't figure out why - his wife was dead, his grandchildren never visited anymore, his children didn't talk to him; he had nothing left to live for.
Then he realised that he still had a couple of hundred pounds in the bank which would've gone directly to the taxman after his death, so he decided to spend everything he had as his last order of business, and buy the most frivolous things he could think of.
The first thing that came to mind: video games.
So Gamble bought himself a PS1, but he also needed to buy a game to play.
He scanned the shelves... and saw a copy of Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee.
He saw Abe on the cover, who looked confused and helpless, just like him. And so Gamble bought the game, just for the hell of it. Something to do before he ended it all.
Gamble booted up the game and began to play... and something unexpected happened:
He started to laugh. For the first time in years.
This was from a man who genuinely believed that he could never smile or be happy again.
For those of you who don't know, Abe's Oddysee has an unlimited life system, so you respawn every time you die, which was very helpful for Gamble, a man in his early seventies who had never played a video game before.
But there's something more. Every time he died in the game, he could get back up and try again, and again, and again, on and on until he succeeded, all the while laughing at its absurdity.
He realised that life was still worth living.
After playing as much of the game as he could, Gamble wrote a six-page letter by hand to Oddworld Inhabitants, the studio which made the game. According to Lorne Lanning, the game's director and president of the studio, everyone in the office was in tears by the time he'd finished reading it out - something that they made ended up saving a man's life.
But the story doesn't end there.
After playing the game, Gamble decided to reconnect with his family. He started hosting Abe Tea Parties, where he invited his grandchildren over to play Abe's Oddysee with him. He even started his own Oddworld merchandise collection!
He even got an Abe tattoo to commemorate the game that saved his life.
Alfred Gamble stayed in contact with the Oddworld Inhabitants team up until his death in 2006 at the age of 79.
Even years later, this remains one of Lanning's favourite stories to tell, and he is deeply humbled that he helped to give this man a new lease on life.
Oddworld Inhabitants continues to include references to Gamble in their games, most recently with a Mudokon named Alf in Oddworld: Soulstorm.
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