ASD and ROM hacking/game modding

[Gamma V]

During my many years on SMW Central, a website dedicated to hacking, or modifying, the digital image of the SNES classic Super Mario World, I found that many users mentioned having Asperger's or High-Functioning Autism. I wonder if the same holds true for other ROM hacking and game modding communities and whether or not there's a reason for it. It would be interesting to see the Autism Community's thoughts on this subject.

 

[Judge]

Having worked a few years for a software gaming company in Silicon Valley, it was interesting to look back in hindsight to ponder that a great many people I worked with were likely on the spectrum of autism. Certainly more of them concentrated in one place as opposed to any other work environment I had encountered over the years. And that in a social sense it was a much more comfortable environment to work in.

However I can only speculate on such a thing. That whether for users or developers, software gaming allows for one critical common denominator. The opportunity to interact primarily with things rather than people and on our own terms. A social dynamic not available to us most of us in the NT world.

I think of this dynamic a lot relative to this online community. Where while it technically has a substantial number of members, the number of those actually posting and interacting with others on a regular basis is relatively small in comparison. Where it's understandable that so many may be so reticent to deal directly with others. A challenge those on the spectrum simply doesn't have in comparison through interacting with manifestations of artificial intelligence. -Yet.

 

[onlything]

Programming, hacking, modeling - it's logical. From point A you go to B, then depending on choices and conditions you can get C, D, E and so on. It's escapism, it's fascinating and it has a set of unchanging rules. I wouldn't be surprised if a great number of people in the game industry was in fact on the spectrum.
(There are simply things that NT brains have a slightly more difficult time working out, you know?)

 

[pjcnet]

I was one of the early pioneers of hacking games, I broke into Commodore 64 games to write cheats and mods as a young teenager and got printed multiple times in a popular magazine at the time called Zzap64! Back then in the mid 1980s modding games in any way what-so-ever was new and somewhat controversial, it was even questioned whether it would remain legal or not. Even before that I used to program, I for instance made a breakout game on the ZX81 at the age of 12 in 1982 which I demonstrated at school to some amazed school governors. I initially taught myself programming on a Commodore Pet in 1979 at the age of 10 that my dad used to bring home from work, I firstly used to modify BASIC programs to see the effects of the changes and that is how I learned, the first program I modified was an invoice program. Before I was introduced to computers I played chess and as a very young child I went to adult chess clubs where I could beat most serious adult club players and a little later I played in the Birmingham team in the UK for my age, my love for computers however took over and my chess was later neglected. Chess involves logical thinking and you most certainly need to think logically to understand computers at a very high level. Many people with Aspies have a special talent that they often spend virtually all their spare time doing to obsess and for a fair proportion this talent is computer related, hence the higher proportion of people with Aspies into ROM hacking + game modding.

PS: At school I came top in Computer Science and got a grade 'A' at 'A' Level. I scored 98% in my course work, so high that the examining board queried it, but it was later verified and they confirmed it to be correct. The problem is I failed all my other 'A' levels, it is also common for people with Aspies to be extremely good at their specialist interest and very poor at most other things. I was at one time in the remedial English class at school yet over the years using computers and the Internet reading and writing I am now quite reasonable so deficiencies can sometimes be overcome (there was 3 main English groups, top, middle and lower, then there was a small 4th group for pupils even lower than the bottom group which was remedial). I was also so bad at interacting with people Etc. that the school wanted me to attend a special school instead which didn't happen due to my parents refusing, there was loads of issues, but this is another story.

 

[Idahocalypse]

It's interesting that you should mention ROM hacks and AS, because lately I've been interested in Pokemon ROM hacks. There's one in particular called Pokemon Clover that I find especially interesting. I have to say that it's exactly how I'd imagine a "Chinpokomon" game to be in the South Park universe. Cartman would probably find it especially enjoyable given its blatantly offensive content. I for one haven't actually played the game but I did find the less offensive entries in its Pokedex to be pretty interesting. Some of the fake Pokemon in the game are surprisingly well-designed and unique. It almost makes me wish that the official Pokemon games would branch out from their family-friendly image and make some edgier content aimed at an older demographic.