An Aspie Life
Bradley Hennessey · 2018 · Free to Play, Indie, Adventure, Simulation, Casual
PC
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Screenshots
About An Aspie Life
“We are all human” – You...
Note – This is a personal game, created from my own personal experiences of living with Asperger Syndrome. I was 16 when I started making An Aspie Life and as of now, I’m 17 years old and about to start University. Everyone with autism is a little different. I did not create the game to be offensive in anyway, only trying to explain what it is like to live with, from my point of view.
(WARNING: This game has imagery that potentially can trigger seizures for players with photosensitive epilepsy)
About
One day your roommate Leaves for no reason. You’re left to face the outside world alone, but this can be both difficult and amazing when you have autism. Just because you have it, doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy life. Some things can be harder to do, but you can do some incredible things as well. It just makes even the mundane parts of life, can be an experience.
"An Aspie Life" is an experimental adventure game that deals with the topic of Asperger's Syndrome. The game is centered around having to live with autism. The player's actions in the game will have to adapt to how an autistic person sees the world. As every element of this game recreates how some people with autism perceive the world, therefore all forms of sound, graphics, and interactions are intentional.
"Video games can be entertaining and educational. When these two qualities are combined, the player not only enjoys being informed, they are also more likely to remember the key themes of the game. ‘An Aspie Life’ is a video game that explores autism through the life experiences of the central character and playing a video game can be more enjoyable and informative than reading literature and watching documentaries" - Tony Attwood
How it represents parts of Asperger's Syndrome.
There’s a lot going on in An Aspie life that is meant to make players feel like they are on the spectrum. It’s a little easier in a list:
All characters in An Aspie Life are black outlines. By doing this, players can’t read body language. Just like someone with autism.
Some characters that the main character knows well, are not black outlines and have some detail. But they are still darkened. This represents how some with autism can learn someone’s body language if they have known them for a long time.
In the game, every environmental sound gets represented on the sound sensitivity meter. The player must keep this under control, so the main character does not become overwhelmed. This represents Sound sensitivity in autism.
In conversations, the player again can’t read body language, as they are all black outlines. But they must try and figure out how to respond with a limited vocabulary. This represents the difficulty Aspies have in putting thoughts into sentences that people can understand.
Also in conversations, the player’s feeling meters of stress, happiness, courage, and uneasiness will affect how a conversation plays out. For example, not much courage means you can’t look at the other person.
To regenerate the feeling meter, players must go into quiet places or do things that the main character enjoys. That being, playing video games.
The game’s art style of blue and purple, represent not just the 80/90s feel of the game but also social isolation. Some items in the game that hold great importance to the main character are not in blue/purple but are in full color, because of how important they are.
Note – This is a personal game, created from my own personal experiences of living with Asperger Syndrome. I was 16 when I started making An Aspie Life and as of now, I’m 17 years old and about to start University. Everyone with autism is a little different. I did not create the game to be offensive in anyway, only trying to explain what it is like to live with, from my point of view.
(WARNING: This game has imagery that potentially can trigger seizures for players with photosensitive epilepsy)
About
One day your roommate Leaves for no reason. You’re left to face the outside world alone, but this can be both difficult and amazing when you have autism. Just because you have it, doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy life. Some things can be harder to do, but you can do some incredible things as well. It just makes even the mundane parts of life, can be an experience.
"An Aspie Life" is an experimental adventure game that deals with the topic of Asperger's Syndrome. The game is centered around having to live with autism. The player's actions in the game will have to adapt to how an autistic person sees the world. As every element of this game recreates how some people with autism perceive the world, therefore all forms of sound, graphics, and interactions are intentional.
"Video games can be entertaining and educational. When these two qualities are combined, the player not only enjoys being informed, they are also more likely to remember the key themes of the game. ‘An Aspie Life’ is a video game that explores autism through the life experiences of the central character and playing a video game can be more enjoyable and informative than reading literature and watching documentaries" - Tony Attwood
How it represents parts of Asperger's Syndrome.
There’s a lot going on in An Aspie life that is meant to make players feel like they are on the spectrum. It’s a little easier in a list:
All characters in An Aspie Life are black outlines. By doing this, players can’t read body language. Just like someone with autism.
Some characters that the main character knows well, are not black outlines and have some detail. But they are still darkened. This represents how some with autism can learn someone’s body language if they have known them for a long time.
In the game, every environmental sound gets represented on the sound sensitivity meter. The player must keep this under control, so the main character does not become overwhelmed. This represents Sound sensitivity in autism.
In conversations, the player again can’t read body language, as they are all black outlines. But they must try and figure out how to respond with a limited vocabulary. This represents the difficulty Aspies have in putting thoughts into sentences that people can understand.
Also in conversations, the player’s feeling meters of stress, happiness, courage, and uneasiness will affect how a conversation plays out. For example, not much courage means you can’t look at the other person.
To regenerate the feeling meter, players must go into quiet places or do things that the main character enjoys. That being, playing video games.
The game’s art style of blue and purple, represent not just the 80/90s feel of the game but also social isolation. Some items in the game that hold great importance to the main character are not in blue/purple but are in full color, because of how important they are.
What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
Wait, is THAT ME?!!?
Игра "An Aspie Life" — это эмоционально насыщенное путешествие в мир аутизма, где игрок погружается в повседневные трудности и эмоциональные бури. Она помогает понять, как люди с аспергером воспринимают мир: социальные взаимодействия, шум, переключение внимания — всё это становится вызовом. Игра сильна в передаче чувств, но её скудная графика и простой геймплей не всегда соответствуют глубине темы. Тем не менее, это важный инструмент для повышения эмпатии и осознанности.
"An Aspie Life" is not primarily intended to be a game, this is instead another one of those self-aggrandizement efforts to get famous off the back of a serious health condition. That's right, this is a more-book-than-game "art" piece in the form of one of the worst made 2D side scrolling pixelcrap "Adventure" games. The subject: A hamfisted, inaccurate and unpleasant experience as the game attempts to take on the role of a health evangelist, but incorrectly portrays the challenges faced by sufferers of the condition. Trying to address serious issues such as mental and emotional health through the medium of video games is misguided and can be harmful. While it's plausible to suggest the intention was noble, this can do more harm than good. It's my opinion that it's improper to use video games to address mental health issues. Apart from the harm such hamfisted attempts at addressing social problems can cause, this offers zero benefit to PC gamers. People suffering from health issues or other social problems should seek out professional help rather than going to crap shovelware video games attempting to get attention/fame by exploiting such problems for their own benefit, as is t…
[h1] …
I don't like reviewing games I didn't actually finish, which is why I'm not giving this a numerical rating, however I did play through the first whole day and WOW, this game is broken. All of the mechanics are poorly explained and also they don't even work have the time (I couldn't check my phone, for example). It yelled at me for staying out too long even though I was literally home when that happened. The mini arcade games range from incredibly bland and basic to outright unplayable because of how broken they are. The conversation mechanics were kind of busted, and also the writing was bad. And that's not even ofc getting into the questionable title of the game itself. Maybe there's some more redeeming qualities in the second day, but that would be after at least around an hour of gameplay so, no, I do not recommend trying this game.
game good 👍
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