Looking for thoughts on social skills modeling game for autism spectrum kids

@bowlfreak_not It’s a worthy goal. I’m not sure this is the medium to address in, but it is a worthy goal that this Aspie is grateful someone wants to pursue.

We expect square pegged people to fit in round holes.

So in that sense: Yes. Yes it would be good to have something teaching understanding of square pegs. I’m all in favor of encouraging social skills to be nurtured, but you (neurotypicals) still need to deal with the fact no matter how well behaved or how well taught, we do see things differently and will respond differently. You the person being addressed seem to get that, but not all do or try to.

As long as “normal people” think that’s something to be annoyed with, living in the world built for normals is going to be a rough experience at times.

I think it’s great that you’re getting involved and I can really relate to that story, nothing is worse than being treated unfairly after all. But like others have pointed out, I dunno if text alone will cut it. Misunderstandings galore online, just because a sentence is interpreted differently than what was intended, and that’s what it’s like for most people it seems. So having a visual element would be preferential, and maybe even an auditory one since many social cues can be related through tone of voice.

People with AS tends to take things at face value, so don’t present it like this is what to say in this situation, since every situation is unique and could have tens of thousands of nuances. But then again, gotta start somewhere I guess. Obviously it needs to be modeled after his age.

An alternative would be making a game educating others of his perspective, in which case maybe text only would be sufficient, but yeah kids do love them pictures.

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Would it catch a child’s attention at the third to fifth grade level?

Most likely not. Maybe only a few. This day and age, yes, kids love technology however I don’t know about these text based games. If I was a fifth grader, I would probably not even play it. Unless I like reading and invest my time in choosing.

But it doesn’t hurt to try, right? I suggest you implant visuals and/or an interesting plot line. Have a dash of fantasy, why not? Don’t have to be a so centred around the situation. I mean if I was a fifth grader, and saw the description about “Be educated on autism” or “Go through the life of having autism” sounds a bit dull.

This idea you came up with has a challenge, to make it engaging yet educated.

Would it be useful as a text only product?

Would it be useful to centre it around autism in a life simulation? Well the question is, Who do you want to target as your intended audience. Everyone? Teenagers? Kids? Adults? Young adults? People who wants to learn about autism? And etc.

Are there enough products like this out there already?

Not really. There are many big blob of texts about autism and articles. But there isn’t really any game that I have come across about autism in general.

My thoughts:
The idea seems great. But the part where I am worried is, the perspective that you will construct through the eyes of a person who has autism. Another would be, can you make it engaging yet educated? Unless your target audience are for those who are happen to be interested in knowing about Autism (to be educated). Then you can possibly can make it more of a educated text based game. But if your trying to widen the target audience, then yes, can you make it engaging yet educated?

And good luck.

I hope that you choose a way to do it that doesn’t become a right/wrong quiz about facial expressions. I would like to see a game that empathize with an ASD perspective. Particularly if it follows a long term life that isn’t a “failure” for not diving into socialization. Maybe give the player options that emphasize work and honesty over popularity and white lies.

I’m somewhere on the spectrum and one of the things I like best about Choicescript is that it doesn’t need pictures, just words. I only appreciate pictures in historical games or when it will help strategy (maps and such).

I think a game like yours could be great not only in showing how choices affect us in the long term (I tend to get stuck in present indecision) and model building relationships with NTs and other ASD individuals, but it could also show some of the difficulties to NTs.

I don’t know how many other ASDs are like this, but my most successful interpretations come from studying acting. Someone performed an action; what do they want by doing so? I might be wrong (probably am most of the time), but narrating with that in mind gives me a chance at least.

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