Ab Errantry:
A Game to Build Awareness of
the Aberrant and Abhorrent
in Teens and Young Adults with Autism
Patricia F. Anderson & Bruce Maxim; University of Michigan
Meaningful Play 2018

Outline
Why
Who
Game Design
Game Mechanics
Play Testing & Accessibility
Game Metrics & Finale
Image credit: Luke Veninga

Why (Background & Purpose)

Problem
Persons with autism:
● 2018: 1 in 59 8-year-old
children
● May prefer to socialize
online
● May be more at risk
from online predators
(Baio et al, 2018) (Davison & Orsini, 2013)
(Normand & Sallafranque‐St‐Louis, 2016)
(Sevlever, Roth, & Gillis, 2013)

Solution —
Go Where They Are
Online!
Next steps — mobile?
Let Them Make It Theirs
Open Source
Open Access
Include representatives of target audience in
design process

Inspirations
Katawa Shoujo
<https://www.kat
awa-shoujo.com/
about.php>

Inspirations
Super Mario <https://www.mariowiki.com/Super_Mario_(series)>

It Takes a Village, uh, Team

Credits
Concept Authors: Patricia F. Anderson, Luke Veninga
Game Developers: Sean Croskey, Luke Pacheco,
Aristotelis Papaioannou, Dominic Retli
Project Manager: Patricia F. Anderson
Scriptwriter: Luke Veninga
Boss Design Artist: Alex Van Trejo
Script Analyst: Adam Grandt
Mentor: Bruce Maxim
Assistant Team Manager: Jeffrey Yackley
Image credit: Alex D. Trejo

Special Kudos
Dr. Kiumi Akingbehin
Pete Wendel
Donald Ukraniec, Riverview Community
High School
Justin Schell, UofM Shapiro Design Lab
Abdalaziz Almuhaisen
ALL THE PLAYTESTERS!!!!
Image credit: Alex D. Trejo

Game Design

Theme
Developed in
Unity 3D
2d side-scroller
Medieval-themed
fantasy storyline

Plotline
The game story focuses around a knight on quest for the king. The king’s children, a
son and a daughter, have run away from the castle, and the king is offering a reward
for their safe return. The king’s children do not want to be found or returned, and are
hiding their identities, while there are other characters who wish to get into the castle
or to disrupt the rescue for their own reasons.

Characters
NPC characters serve in a variety of roles.
Minor characters:
● Move plot forward
● Direct player to information or activity goals
● Respond to player choices
Major characters also:
● Appear in multiple scenes
● Connect themes & issues

Characters — Special
The general represents the King’s
wishes in the King’s absence. He
provides direction to the player,
while the squire provides support.
One of them is dishonest, and
manipulative, encouraging the
player to make poor choices.
Which one? That depends, and can
be different with replay.

Bosses (Monsters)
Structure for developing the bosses
initially focused on first identifying
common types of internet or online
predators, and then mapping classic
mythological monsters to those in ways
that (hopefully) reinforces potential risks.
NOTE: Linguistic patterns for dialog
extracted from Perverted Justice
http://www.perverted-justice.com (Olson et
al, 2007)
Image credit: Alex D. Trejo

Special Features
Player choices:
● Rescue the prince or the princess
● Play as male or female knight
Challenges include both battles and puzzles

Game Mechanics

Challenges
Social grooming
Trust malformations
● Inappropriate trust building (with
inappropriate information
sharing)
● Trust erosion (for previously
trusted authority figures &
advisors)
Isolation (Social distancing from
previously trusted communities)
National Autism Society (UK): Robert Ogden School: Online Safety:
https://www.autism.org.uk/services/nas-schools/robert-ogden/school-life/online
%20safety.aspx

Challenges
Social grooming
Inappropriate trust building (with
inappropriate information sharing)
Trust erosion (for previously trusted
authority figures & advisors)
Isolation (Social distancing from
previously trusted communities)
Image credit: Alex D. Trejo

Challenges: Example
The knight has to navigate past characters who
misrepresent their identities and goals, along with
more traditional game challenges such as battles
and puzzles.
Example challenge:
Encounter in village with woodcutter who asks
who you are, why you’re there. The King previously
told the knight the quest is confidential. If player
chooses to disclose confidential content, the
villager attempts to battle the player.

Challenges: Example

Play Testing & Accessibility

Play Testing Groups
Middle School
Large group testing (3 groups, n=89)
Quantitative results
Gender balance of the play-testers tended slightly
towards male, but was close to balanced.
● 51 male
● 38 female
College & Young Adults
Recruited through the office of Services for
Students with Disabilities
Focus group (5; 3 male, 2 female)
Included persons with cognitive, physical, and
sensory disabilities
Qualitative results

Play Testing Results (Middle School)
Did you find any portion to be too long? (75% No)
Too short? (93% No)
Too challenging? (46.1%) said Nothing.
Not challenging enough? (72%) said Nothing.
Did you get stuck?
● (23.6%) said Puzzles.
● (31.5%) said Nothing.
Favorite parts:
● (23.6%) said Character(s).
● (20%) said All.
Least favorite:
● (17.9%) said Controls.
● (42.7%) said Nothing.

Play Testing Results
Game play testing
addressed specifics
(such as interface,
satisfaction with game
elements, willingness
to play again), and less
tangible elements
(such as perceived
lessons in the game,
and ability to identify
the underlying
purpose of the game).

Accessibility
Accessibility checklist
used was derived from:
Game Accessibility
Guidelines: ​<http://game
accessibilityguidelines.c
om/basic/>

Accessibility
Testers identified both fixable & unfixable accessibility issues (contrast, colorblindness,
Text-to-speech) .

Game Metrics & Finale

Game Metrics
● 100% code reuse between platforms thanks to Unity and SQLite
○ Built for Windows x86, Windows x86_64, MacOS, Linux x86, Linux x86_64
● 6 main “areas” with multiple levels within each (60-100 minutes of game play)
○ Boss fight in each area
○ 29 in-game characters to talk to 7 of which are evil
● 400 sprites/sprite sheets
○ 20 unique characters, 3 full tilemaps, 50 gameplay objects, and more
● 15 soundtracks and 80+ sounds
● Ending scene that reflects on the choices made by the player
○ Goes through the positive and negative decisions
○ Explains what was right or wrong with them

Some Metrics on the Game Source Code

Lessons Learned
● Scopes will constantly change, so have regular meetings and discussions to not
waste time on big implementations.
● Get assets and external deliverables early
● Understand the difference between making a product for you vs making a product
for your client
● Know your team and who excels at what
● Learn new concepts without wasting time
● Design for the broadest audience that fits the concept
● Aim for FUN!

Next Steps / Future Directions / Wishlist
● Build in more accessibility
○ Text-to-Speech
○ Support for accessible gameplay devices
○ Mobile version
● Validity testing with test populations
○ Teens & young adults with autism
○ Teens and young adults with cochlear implants
○ At-risk seniors
○ Persons with facial difference
○ Persons with executive function disorder or related cognitive conditions
○ At-risk persons of any sort who tend to socialize primarily online
● Extend game content with richer dialog challenge examples
● Expand game structure to more explicitly include 3rd game goal (asking for help)
● More bosses/monsters/layers/levels from original game plan/script; more diversity
in characters; more character customization

http://aberrantry.com