Non-entertaining game Auti-sim: feel the discomfort of touch overload

    You are standing on a field under a beautiful blue sky. A few meters from you is a group of screeching and happily playing on the playground children. But when you come closer, you suddenly notice that the children, in fact, are faceless statues staring blankly at you. Their scream almost deafens, layering on a monotonous school rumble. The idyllic picture also begins to blur, as if the world is rushing between reality and the interference of the frustrated analogue television channel. The only salvation for you is to retreat to the safety of your starting location.

    It may sound like a description of a new horror movie, but in reality we are talking about Auti-SIM - a small but thought-provoking first-person game dedicated to the hypersensitivity of autistic children.

    “I did not seek to imitate what hypersensitivity actually is. My goal was to cause a similar reaction in a person with normal neuroperception. Thus, the task was basically to hellishly annoy your feelings. "Said Taylan Kay, the chief developer.



    Kay also said the game was partly inspired by Inside Autism documentary excerpt , which also uses similar audio and video filters to convey sensory overload experience. As the creator of the video put it, “My brain loses its ability to know. It crashes like a computer. ”According to Kay, he thought it would be a powerful personal experience, and not a bad weekend project.

    In addition, the idea was due to the fact that Kay’s wife is a social worker who interacts with people with special needs and their families. One of the groups consists of children who have brothers or sisters with impaired neuroperception. They often do not understand how their sister or brother feel and feel forgotten because their parents spend less time on them.

    The game received generally positive feedback, both from people with autism themselves and from special educators working with them. However, there were some negative reviews, which, among other things, were perceived by the creators as an additional incentive to improve the product.

    From a small demo version written in two days, Kay and his team plan to develop Auti-SIM into a full-fledged game. There will be more interaction, characters with artificial intelligence and new locations, for example, a classroom or a shopping center. Although the game is not a commercial project, developers are waiting for funding from government agencies and people who share the goals of raising awareness about the autism problem and related problems.

    A source:Auti-sim lets you experience the horror of sensory overload

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