Mask

Mask was a game created in Unity for the Cross Cultural Impact Jam (2021). I served as game designer and narrative lead on an international team of four. It was the winner of the "Making an Impact" Award for greatest cultural impact.  It is available to download for Windows PC and Mac and to play in-browser, on itch.io.

The Cross Cultural Impact Jam is a game jam held by Games for Change and cosponsored by the French Embassy.  During this jam, international teams consisting of one student each from  the United States, Canada, France, and Senegal work  together to create a game for social good. 

Mask is a game based on the experience of masking as an autistic person in a neurotypical world.  "Masking" is the process by which an autistic person disguises their autistic traits, mimicking the social norms and expressions of those around them to conceal their own autism. It is a process that is taught and socially reinforced to many autistic individuals, as masking is often the only way to be at all accepted socially as an autistic person.

I proposed the idea to my group to make a game about the mechanics  and difficulties of masking, as it is a prominent feature of my own experience being autistic that  I have not otherwise seen explored in media. Masking is a concept that is unfamiliar to most allistic (non-autistic) people, and I felt that a video game could be the perfect medium through which to demonstrate the taxing, emotionally draining process of masking.