In week ten, I made final revisions to the storyline and added descriptions of the endings. There are two endings in total, one corresponding to Tyler becoming friends and the other to not becoming friends. My envisioned ending CG scene is: 1. Tyler and ‘The Boy’ are arm in arm, smiling at the camera, with the text description: ‘I’m so happy to meet an old classmate at the new school. He still remembers the planet cards I loved playing with and knows I’m interested in astronomy. This is my first step in making friends. Following this rule, imitating his logic, will I have more friends in the future…? Anyway, I’m looking forward to going to his house to do customer service after school tomorrow.’
Imagine like this and Maria will recreate：
Then, in the bad ending, or rather, the normal ending, he stands alone in the center of the screen, against a noisy background with groups of students talking. He seems excluded from the hustle and bustle.
I learned earlier that people with ASD are very good at imitating others’ speech patterns and logic to disguise themselves. I don’t mean to criticize or be surprised, but I have a lot of empathy for their behavior. They also really want normal social interaction or people who understand and accept them. Throughout the development of the core gameplay text for this game, I continuously updated my ideas. Initially, I had reservations about researching this demographic, as most people described them as indifferent to others’ affairs and having different ways of thinking. This intrigued me, leading me to choose this game. However, the deeper I delved, the more I realized they also experience struggles and confusion. For many, social interaction is automatic, but for them, it’s a continuous process of processing information and making judgments. So sometimes, rather than being strange or difficult to get along with, it’s more accurate to say they’re using a different processing mechanism to engage in the same activity. This mechanism, however, relies more on computation and is more prone to overload. As I understand it, our game aims to provide a firsthand experience and understanding, encouraging players to try to see things from their perspective and offering them the possibility of making many friends.