I appreciate your efforts in using games as a platform to deliver a message. But what message do you want to provide?

I just made up my own categories here to help you clarify:

• therapeutic games - should be developed with scientists. I know folks with other issues such as dyslexia, ADHD and social phobia has "mini-games" in which they can train on very specific tasks (like memory, sounding words etc.) or in the case of phobia - cognitive therapy in a gamification format (you get scores by completing challenges).
• informational games - educating others of how it can be to have issues with this. An example is http://www.kongregate.com/games/jordanmagnuson/loneliness which translates the feeling of loneliness into a little "non-game" as he calls it.
• comforting games - games which people with issues can play where they can feel familiarity with the protagonists, where the UI and in-game experiences have been adjusted/adapted to any deficiencies and things which they might find disturbing.

The thing is each of these games requires their own approaches (educated, emotional/artsy and general game development for a specific user group)

I appreciate your efforts in using games as a platform to deliver a message. But what message do you want to provide?

I just made up my own categories here to help you clarify:

• therapeutic games - should be developed with scientists. I know folks with other issues such as dyslexia, ADHD and social phobia has "mini-games" in which they can train on very specific tasks (like memory, sounding words etc.) or in the case of phobia - cognitive therapy in a gamification format (you get scores by completing challenges).
• informational games - educating others of how it can be to have issues with this. An example is http://www.kongregate.com/games/jordanmagnuson/loneliness which translates the feeling of loneliness into a little "non-game" as he calls it.
• comforting games - games which people with issues can play where they can feel familiarity with the protagonists, where the UI and in-game experiences have been adjusted/adapted to any deficiencies and things which they might find disturbing.

The thing is each of these games requires their own approaches (educated, emotional/artsy and general game development for a specific user group)

Perhaps it's going to be a hybrid between informational and comforting games. Since one of the autistic symptoms is that they tend to have short attention span and experience hard time on focusing on things, I was thinking that the UI (like the map in GTA) can be tweaked throughout the game, in which there would be times where the destination objectives would be altered; worldview would be blurred; player wouldn't be able to control when they encountered certain object and stuff.

A member suggested not to revolves around autistic symptoms as the gameplay, but as part of the story. (Like Ethan Mars in Heavy Rain who suffered long term depression after Jason's death) I'm thinking about that too, but my main concern is to promote empathy towards the player on how autistic individuals would response towards their surrounding, without 'dehumanizing' these special people.

Do we have real understanding of how autistic people perceive things ??? It sound like one of the ideas for the game is to try to install understanding in the players about what it is to those who have that condition.

How many different flavors are there that might be expressed??

In 3D the 'focus' where what the player views shifts from attention getting overview to zooming in to some object/subset with exclusion of all else. Somehow the compulsive fascination would have to be expressed to hold focus on a narrow subject (perhaps with only faint whispers of all else that is going on).

I dont know if the person starts visualizing not just the immediate subject but all the myriad connections and associations/relations which expand into view in their brain ...

Do we have real understanding of how autistic people perceive things ??? It sound like one of the ideas for the game is to try to install understanding in the players about what it is to those who have that condition.

How many different flavors are there that might be expressed??

In 3D the 'focus' where what the player views shifts from attention getting overview to zooming in to some object/subset with exclusion of all else. Somehow the compulsive fascination would have to be expressed to hold focus on a narrow subject (perhaps with only faint whispers of all else that is going on).

I dont know if the person starts visualizing not just the immediate subject but all the myriad connections and associations/relations which expand into view in their brain ...

Most of the info about autism is taken from first-person account academic journals, so the explanation are rather vivid and arguably reliable. Moreover, autism isn't confined and predetermined through lists of behaviors; but a spectral disorder. I would then, limit the main character, let's say "A" to experience five symptoms throughout the game.

These symptoms would be triggered when the A is within a range of the specified area / physical objects / audio objects. For example, the player will experience blurry vision and tight, high-frequency sounds when he approached rumbling machines, etc.

I am still thinking to have narrative structures that would surface the character's autistic syndromes, not just on the game mechanics / gameplay itself ; a game that deals with psychological instability that would turn out to be the core antagonistic element of the gameplay. It would not be another typical indie horror, anyway.

Check out the comedy movie Hot Fuzz, by the same guys who did the recent World's End. The lead character in Hot Fuzz is a good example of someone with Autism.

A member suggested not to revolves around autistic symptoms as the gameplay, but as part of the story. I'm thinking about that too, but my main concern is to promote empathy towards the player on how autistic individuals would response towards their surrounding, without 'dehumanizing' these special people.

I believe I covered some of field about what could go wrong about that.

But you can disregard my earlier advice if you end up doing it this way since it is usually my goal to make an "entertaining" game rather than "informational" or "comforting" and I misinterpreted your goal. Mipmap had a great post clearing out the issue to everyone. :)

I can just personally imagine a game on autism (or anything else of that nature) where the point was not to either make a game for autistic people or a game about autistic people. I personally think you could achieve wider sympathizing reaction on the public with an entertaining game that has autism as a mere feature.

Hi fellow game designers / developers,

I would love to hear about any ideas that you guys have for a video game that will focuses around a main character who suffered low-functioning autistic spectrum disorder. I'm currently ideating a first-person video game that would have a gameplay and mechanics that is inspired by autism symptoms.

Autistic symptoms may include hypersensitivity or hyposensitivity towards the surroundings, OCD, over-agitated / excited over particular objects, uncontrollable body movements, and anything else that you could mention.

If anybody has brilliant ideas on creating an emotionally engaging experience based on these theme, I would be glad to hear it from you guys.

Additional info:

The main objective of this game is trying to engage the player to 'empathize' and feel the life of an autistic person through first person perspective.

Interesting take on a game, here is my idea for content;

-hyposensitivity towards the surroundings

Have it so that when you walk around your character gets "quick time events" that occour from time to time. I don't really know if the player should get a reward from completing them or how the player could be punished for failing them.

The idea is that they will be very annoying and distracting but the people around the player won't notice them. So the player will be put in the shoes of a person who reacts to things that other would find trivial.

- OCD

- interest in object

Make it so that the camera always moves to watch the object in question, the player will always need to look the other way but the camera will always slowly go watch the object again.

- body movements

Make it so that when you do trivial things like pouring a drink you might shake and spill a lot which you have to clean up. Or have it so that your arm might just lash out and hit somebody and then you have to talk your way out of it.

I think that by having the player controled character do actions that the player does not control the player will have a greater understanding of the plight many autists have.