Life with Games: An Autistic Perspective
Games, for the majority of us, have been a major factor of our lives. In a way, they have played a part in making all of us the way we are today in shaping our interests and personalities. In my case, that couldn’t be any more true, especially with how I have seen the world in many moments in my life.
I was born with ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder) and one of my biggest challenges in my life was understanding the world around me, including the people that I see every day. In school, I done whatever I could to fit in and, whilst I was never a full outcast, I did struggle to feel proper relationships with people and understand the actions of others. However, games from a young age have given me an escape that can bring a smile to my face as I explored the bright colourful worlds that were made by talented developers. One of my earliest memories was playing on the family’s PS1 in a cold, winter night, on a CRT TV in the corner of the conservatory, playing games such as Croc: Legend of the Gobbos without a care in the world. I was never really great at the game at the time, in fact I struggled for a while to get past the first level since I never understood that I had to hit a gong, which was the end goal of each level. When I figured it out, as small as it was, it was the first instance of me feeling a sense of satisfaction and victory from something I figured out myself, teaching me to remember what I learned as I proceeded through the rest of the game.
Games also acted as a bridge to bring me and my family closer together. Being the youngest of three siblings, it was difficult for us to do things together for fun, as by the time I was 10, my brother and sister were already at work or at university. Despite this, JRPGs were a game genre that helped with me talking to them and figuring out things together as a team. For instance, around the time Kingdom Hearts II came out back in 2006, my brother and I would sit down and play through the game together all the way through to the end. We would even look up on tips on how to beat the final boss since we struggled to beat it (even though nowadays I could beat it with no issues). Heck I even remember waking up in the middle of the night to see him playing the game with the TV lighting up the room. It was one of the first instances where, despite the huge age gap between us, I could get along and have fun with my brother where beforehand I would struggle. In fact, JRPGs in general have fascinated me in terms of the level of growth you get from levelling up and gaining new equipment, learning new strategies to beat enemies and presenting to you characters that are written to not only be engaging, but in a lot of cases also help anyone understand those character’s actions and personalities, teaching me empathy and care with how many characters in these games can be linked to problems that many in real life can relate to.
At around 10 years old I would be exposed to the online gaming community, and this would be through let’s play channels, game collectors and so on so forth. Many at the time would discuss games from years past that I never got a chance to play, whether it was due to the time I was born or just not having the respective systems to play them growing up. In fact, I was exposed to classic systems like the SNES at a young age as well thanks to my late grandfather letting me play on emulators on his PC. Games such as the Donkey Kong Country games, Super Mario RPG and even Chrono Trigger were games that made me fall in love with games even more, with their beautiful sprites, enchanting soundtracks, and difficult yet fair challenges that I felt like I could not get from games being released at the time. At that point, it sparked my love to collect games that I wanted to rather than what everyone else was playing, both old and new. In fact, I recently got into collecting for the Sega Saturn (I’m going to be in debt with this collection, aren’t I?). I was able to embrace my love for games that may have been ridiculed for being too “childish” by my classmates at the time, although I still struggled to express that with people at the time with confidence.
This would finally change for me however when I started attending college. Around this time Pokémon Sun and Moon was releasing for the Nintendo 3DS, and I was looking forward to it as a fan of the series. This was when I started to notice other students playing on their 3DS’s around the college. Due to some social anxiety, I was nervous at the time to confront people, but I wanted to know more people that have the same passion for gaming like I did, so I mustered up the courage to ask if I could join. It worked! This led to some of my favourite memories in gaming. Memories of close-call matches in Pokémon, creating fan projects with friends, and talking about different genres and series’ with others, which was something I kept on the down low for such a long time. It felt like a dam burst open!
Whilst many people might see games as a detriment or a waste of time, for me it’s actually supported me in many key parts of growing up to the point where I can comfortably say that without them my life would probably be harder. Games helped pave the way for me to know what was right or wrong, helped fuel my creative spark and imagination, and helped forged connections and bonds with people that I still consider my closest friends to this very day! Because of this, I don’t think I will ever be grown tired of this industry, no matter how many negative aspects there might be. Who knows? Perhaps there still a lot of that will change in the next ten years for the better thanks to this medium and I will embrace it wholeheartedly.
Is there anything about games that you hold special to you? Maybe even helped the way you see life around you? Please let me know.
