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Autistic Creator Co-op Bundle

A topic by PsychHound created Mar 25, 2023 Views: 1,896 Replies: 70
Viewing posts 1 to 24
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Hey yall!

April is Autism Awareness & Acceptance month so I wanted to put together a co-op bundle featuring games from autistic creators! This will be a paid bundle with revenue split between creators 

Video games or TTRPGs/LARPS accepted! 

No free games please 

This is going on honor system that only autistic creators will participate, so please don't try to cheat the system here. However, both formally diagnosed & self diagnosed autistics are welcome to join

Autistic folk with additional marginalized identities are especially encouraged to participate

If your game was made on a team, feel free to participate if the team leads, or more than half the team, is autistic

Games dealing with neurodivergence would be especially cool!

I'm going to close submissions at midnight EST on March 31st and aim to release the bundle on April 2nd for World Autism Day, to run the rest of April

If you're interested, please drop a link to the game(s) you'd like to include (no more than 3 games per developer please!) from the account that hosts those games

If anyone has any questions let me know!

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If it's cool, I can offer my services as a pixel artist to any game devs wanting to participate. Also, is it okay if I advertise this event on Tumblr?

Both very cool! Thank you!

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Arent people on the spectrum overrepresentated in the gaming community as it is? ;-)

There is even hypothesis, that some behaviour that is called  autism is   beneficial for computer work. But I would not go so far as to postulate, that we evolved that because we created computers.

But I would be interested in what games come from actually self identified or diagnosed autists. My guess would be, that you would be hard pressed to find differences in most cases.

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As an autist i'm here to promote development of autsits projects like games

i'm the developper of Fictiotopia Legacy

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I feel like these are the games that make it clearest that I'm autistic :D

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These look so sweet! Thank you!

Aaaaawwwww thank you!!!! I'm hyped to be part of the bundle :D Thanks for running it, it's so wonderful to see some autism visibility!

hey there! could you please follow this link to approve your participation in the bundle? thanks!

https://itch.io/b/1779/celebrating-autistic-creators

hey there! still waiting on your approval before we can post the bundle! if you need to/would rather be pulled out of the bundle just let me know and i can edit it!

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Love this idea, thanks for pulling it together! According to friends, these are mine that best reflect my autism:

Oh these games look super cool! Love all of these, thanks!

hey there! could you please follow this link to approve your participation in the bundle? thanks!

https://itch.io/b/1779/celebrating-autistic-creators

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I am autistic. Got Diagnosed 2013 in Cologne by Dr. Kai vogeley.

My games. :
https://digitalphoenix-ug.itch.io/karporam
https://digitalphoenix-ug.itch.io/fleeing-felines-the-cat-escape

https://digitalphoenix-ug.itch.io/hokutobu

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oh awesome!! love the graphics on these, thank you!

thanks. glad to hear

Hi! I was wondering if you'd accept, say, fiction, essays, or zines that discuss neurodiversity or features neurodiverse characters?

I'm multiply neurodiverse (autism and ADHD as well as other statuses), and I have a couple of works I've already made but not published here that I feel might suit the overall theme, if so.

(I know Itch is a weird platform for this, but I've reached more people here with past works than elsewhere, strangely enough.)

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since the goal of this is to celebrate autistic creators, and not just game devs specifically, then yes! i think that would be a wonderful add to the bundle

Awesome, thank you!

hey there! im gonna be closing submissions in a few hours if you still wanted to get your works in the bundle

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I'm down and fit the bill!

https://kaimedina.itch.io/thegoblinthought 

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this looks super cool!!! amazing, thank you!!

hey there! could you please follow this link to approve your participation in the bundle? thanks!

https://itch.io/b/1779/celebrating-autistic-creators

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Apologies for the delay! Approved!

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This sounds great! Here's my game. It's pretty explicitly about disability:

https://everestvorobyev.itch.io/bring-your-own-oxygen

oh this looks like a meaningful and touching game. thank you for adding it!!

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Hi.

HHGames wants to join.

https://headhuntersgames.itch.io/sharpshooter3d

looks super cool!! thanks!!

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Thank you SO MUCH for doing this!

As someone who is currently struggling to get diagnosed because "I don't look autistic", the 'both formally diagnosed & self diagnosed autistics are welcome to join' part almost made me tear up. It breaks my heart to hear people say that self-diagnosis is less valid without even being aware of just how hard it is to be officially diagnosed with certain conditions, especially if you're an adult female.

Due to both the theme of this bundle and what this game in particular means to me, I'd like to submit Hang in There, Little One. I said before I never wanted to have this game associated with any bundles, but I feel like a special bundle also deserves a special game.

Hang in There, Little One
A solo journaling TTRPG about helping your inner child heal from trauma. The cover, in purple and black tones, pictures a little girl, sitting on the floor, her face hidden as she hugs her knees.

Unfortunately, the other games I'd like to submit were never finished because, due to a deterioration of my mental health,  I had a full-blown burnout last year and, even though I currently have 15 WIP projects, I haven't had the energy to touch any of them ever since. But I'm still glad I was able to finish this one, as it's my pride and joy. It's a game about dealing with trauma, which is something very near and dear to my heart and it's also the only game that my impostor syndrome doesn't make me hate.

Since we can donate up to 3 games, I'd like to submit these ones as well:

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all of these look like lovely games, but "hang in there little one" looks so incredibly meaningful and touching and i absolutely love seeing games like this in the indie space. it reminds me of what i treasure about independent creatives so much who are producing such meaningful works on things a lot of big studios would never dream of touching. it really is a game after my own heart and i thank you for adding it to the bundle 

as a formally diagnosed autistic and social worker who mainly works with autistic clients, self diagnosis is not only valid but a wonderful thing. there are so many reasons either not to get a formal diagnosis, or why it would be difficult to get one such as being low income, AFAB, or a person of color. knowledge about autism is expanding so rapidly and is frequently outpacing trained clinicians and diagnosticians. it wasn't that long ago that most therapists turned away autistic patients because they saw us as too foreign to understand. i wish you the best of luck with your journey, and remind you that you are the expert on your own experience, and that if you feel understood & thrive in the autistic community, then you were meant to be there. if there's ever anything i can do for you feel free to shoot me a message (im psychhound on tumblr). i've helped dozens of people through this process at this point & believe we all should be doing what we can to take care of each other and protect each other

hey there! could you please follow this link to approve your participation in the bundle? thanks!

https://itch.io/b/1779/celebrating-autistic-creators

I made a silly little Goncharov game when that was the big meme on Tumblr- I'd love for it to be included if it qualifies! https://liquidrina.itch.io/gamecharov

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this made me laugh out loud!! we love goncharov in this house, thank you for including the game!!

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hey there! could you please follow this link to approve your participation in the bundle? thanks!

https://itch.io/b/1779/celebrating-autistic-creators

Done! Thank you!

Hi 

I wish to join the bundle.

https://tastet.itch.io/guys-of-new-york

absolutely, thank you so much!!

wish to join the bundle

https://malzone-studios.itch.io/wild-castle

thanks

looks super cool, thank you!!

okay!! the bundle is finalized if everyone can please go and approve their submissions!! thank you everyone who joined!!

why am I not part of the bundle??

I did not get anything to  approve..

I am pretty confused now. I posted it in the thread and I understood your reply this way that you liked my work and wanted to put in the bundle. ... But now, I seem to be not present in the bundle.

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Hi. I don't think it's that you're not part of the bundle, but that we need to just confirm our participation. The bundle not live yet and is not planned to be released until April 2nd. In order to confirm our participation though I believe we need a link from PsychHound which I can not find. I'm assuming they'll post it later on, if I am not misunderstanding the process.

also here

sorry all! this is my first co-op so i didn't realize it wouldn't send the page to yall

here's the link to approve - https://itch.io/b/1779/celebrating-autistic-creators

everyone who posted should be on there unless there was a glitch! i went over it twice

thanks. now it worked.

Normally, bundles needed to be approved appear under co op bundles, too. THis time, it strangely did not. THis confused me a lot.

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yeah that's what i assumed as well? may have been a bug!

I agree. Likely a bug

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you are in the bundle! i've posted the link to approve your participation. sorry for the confusion!!

Thanks for the clarification

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of course!

Bundle cancelled?

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not canceled, just still waiting on a few people :( I've reached out to them so hopefully up by tomorrow!!

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I've been diagnosed two weeks ago, at 29 years old, and it has been some highly emotional last few weeks. If it still possible, you could add my games as well:

https://vinisoul.itch.io/a-dolphins-tale

https://vinisoul.itch.io/a-wolfs-tale

https://vinisoul.itch.io/a-penguins-tale

In any case, that's a very nice initiative and in the worst case scenario I'll be happy to try to participate again in the next year bundle!

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i'm sorry, unfortunately i can't edit the bundle once i finalized it :( but if it goes well then def will try to do another bundle next year!!

Thank you for replying! I hope you all have a very nice sale!

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bundle published!! thank you to everyone who submitted games :D 
https://itch.io/b/1779/celebrating-autistic-creators

Wow. It sold more in 3 days than any other bundle I participated in did in more than a year. awesome

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yeah its been great to see so far!! im gonna keep promoting it over the month to hopefully keep getting some sales :)

Are you able to post it on Steamgifts my steam account doesn't qualify.

do you have a link for how to do that / what accounts qualify? i truly don't use steam very much so im not sure if mine would either

Autism is pretty common eh?

1 in 100 kids: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/autism-spectrum-disorders

so pretty common 

actually according to the CDC's latest research, it's at least 1 in 36. but this study was only done with diagnosed 8 year olds, whereas a lot of people do not receive a diagnosis until teens or adulthood, and many more do not receive an official diagnosis due to structural barriers like systematic racism or sexism, or do not want a diagnosis because of discrimination. as a developmental disability social worker, i think autism is way more common than people think. i wouldn't be surprised if it was closer to 5 or 10% of the population. and a lot of autistic people tend to flock to groups like online fandom or indie gaming, so even more common to find autistic people in those groups. i started playing a d&d game with strangers where i was the only one with a diagnosis and then it turned out all 6 of us were autistic except the dm who has adhd. it's a lot more common than people give credit for!

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Please do not forget,here, you do not have the "general population" but a special target audience of this site. It does not matter how huge the autism rate in the general population is. Here are mostly programmers. Thus, here, you will find a lot more autistics than in real life.

https://kennethrobersonphd.com/silicon-valley-breeding-ground-aspergers-syndrome...

This illustrates my point as well.

Now thanks to this bundle, I made almost as much revenue in one month, than I made in the past 3 years

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that's so exciting!!!

thanks