Game for Change

Link to Game

This week I was able to develop a text based game about Autism. I have had first hand experience working with children with this condition, and I feel that the media really doesn't explain to us the experience of working with these children. I feel that if people were to understand more fully the way these children experience the world, that public opinion would move from skepticism to appreciation and even to increased involvement.

One of my greatest resources on autism is the book Tic Toc Autism Clock, a book written by my family friend in Missouri Elizabeth Obrey. This book talks about how each autistic child is extremely unique, and gives us questions to ask ourselves how this child perceives its world in order to know how to teach the child to develop normally. I used this book in my game when creating a fictional character based on a child that I know that has a high intolerance to social interactions. I tried to make it clear that this child does not react in normal ways to social cues or to redirection, but rather lashes out reflexively and sporadically.

This reality coincides with data found at nationalautismassociation.org, a source of information and facts about the disease. This website describes that currently there is no cure for autism, though with early intervention and treatment, the diverse symptoms related to autism can be greatly improved and in some cases completely overcome. To some people the fictional character "Charlie" might seem almost too normal. Truth be told, Charlie, or at least the real boy behind the fictional name, has progressed greatly throughout his life. He has learned to speak clearly and has learned to function well in public school. This is evident in the game when Charlie is able to communicate with the player clearly as well as do all the activities at the summer camp.

Finally, I used the article Empowering People with Autism by Presuming Competence by Rosemary Crossley as a theme for my game. Basically this article talks about the power we give to autistic people when we assume that they have the potential to be normal communicators and contributors to society. When we don't put limits on people, we allow them to reach for the same goals that we are reaching for. For that same reason, I didn't include any limitations or "restrictions" with Charlie. The player has choices to communicate with Charlie as we would with any other boy. Although Charlie doesn't respond to those things in a normal fashion, we do what we can to treat him with respect and with the hope that he will learn to respond to intelligible forms of communication.

In order to truly drive these points home, I chose to give people another story about Autism, one that is intimate and personal. Just like in the video The Danger of a Single Story, I wanted to give an alternate view on Autism than what we see in the media, which are often the most extreme cases. I wanted to show you a boy that had made progress, and that still displayed autistic tendencies but that had many of the characteristics that we see in children without Autism. I chose to use this personal approach as opposed to a political, third-party approach in order to create a more educational and impacting experience for the player. This game invites people to take the step to care for Charlie, and hopefully from their experience, learn about the challenges but also the progress that occurs in the ongoing battle against Autism.