Challenge

Autism affects 32 million children globally, many do not have easy or affordable access to therapy. Many traditional therapies are based on changing the child’s behaviour so that the world can be more comfortable with them, but we wanted a way to make them more comfortable with the world they live in.

So, the brief was to create a tool accessible to children on the autism spectrum to build valuable social skills and at the same time help them connect and build deep meaningful relationship with people.

Solution

We created a classic tabletop role playing game, built around the DIR Floortime therapeutic framework, that gives children a safe sandbox in imagination to learn and develop critical social problem solving, emotional thinking, change management and social skills in a fun and safe environment.

The game was created in partnership with professional therapists, autism experts, families with children with autism and experienced table-top role-playing game dungeon masters.

Developed to help with the types of interactions they struggle with in everyday life, the world of the game works as a proxy for their experience in the real world, reinforcing the five critical ‘core capacities’ they need to flourish, in ways that are more effective than traditional therapies.

To bring the world to life, we worked with globally renowned fantasy illustrators to create a stunningly beautiful world filled with unique characters. Helping people with autism create a better reality through fantasy.

Results

The game was launched through a Kickstarter campaign, the rationale for using Kickstarter was that it gave us a global audience and the widest reach we could get on a very limited budget.

The campaign raised close to a quarter of a million USD in pledges and sets were delivered to over 25 countries to families, therapists and schools.

Initial results have shown that the game has had a positive impact on children and a number of schools have already adopted the system into their courses.