When Life Gives You Lemons is a computer game (prototype, in development) that is designed for autistic girls between 10-16 years. It is meant to support them in improving their socio-emotional skills and self confidence in dealing with emotions and the social interactions of every day life.
Tags: mini-rpg, branching narrative, story-driven, choice-based, 2D
A game prototype "play-through" demo for this project can be viewed on here.
This repository currently contains the c# code used in the Unity project and some examples for YarnSpinner (dialogue) scripts. This repository has a wiki, which contains some documentation on custom Yarn Commands and Yarn Functions that were used to manipulate the game's behaviour from within dialogues.
To receive a copy of the whole Unity project and demo scene, please contact me.
The report will be publicly available online and I will link it here asap.
Abstract: Autistic girls, who are diagnosed less frequently than boys and are often able to blend into their social environment while obscuring autistic behaviours, often face difficulties interacting and integrating with their social environment and become marginalized by their peers. In recent years, applied games (also "serious games") have gained popularity as a tool to support young autistic people in their socio-emotional development. This study investigates how we can design an applied computer game to support autistic girls (10-16y.) by providing a safe environment to experience simulated social interactions and learn how to cope with conflict and emotions. The project employed a user-centric approach by involving autistic girls, experts and practitioners during the design process. The two main outcomes are a proposal for a game design and playable game prototype, as well as insights on the active involvement of autistic girls as game co-designers.