Diverge

Project Diverge is a UP Shiley School of Engineering Capstone project focused on a team of 4 computer science majors (Sophie Arcangel, Max Clark, Nate Hopper, Penny Silliman) building a video game. The game is focused on delivering and showcasing the neurodivergent experiences of both the team members and members of the greater neurodivergent community through story and engaging gameplay.

This project was proposed by myself and Penny Silliman as a custom project, and it's my biggest passion project of my life.

Many of us have played games whose story and design have left a massive impact on us, long after playing. We're a team of computer scientists who have experienced this, and we want to recreate it with a focus on empathy building and representing the neurodiverse experience. Neurodiversity refers to neurological disabilities and disorders such as autism, ADHD, and dyslexia that may present challenges in day-to-day life. We are collecting perspectives of people in the community and speaking to experts in the Psychology and English departments to inspire our gameplay design.

We've realized that dungeon games have a strong "link" to the message of perseverance and hope that we would like to give, so we have been heavily inspired by The Legend of Zelda, Link to the Past. This includes gameplay such as combat, puzzles, etc. However, we've been converting these mechanics to fit the theme of our game. For example, our first dungeon is school. Lots of neurodivergent people face sensory issues, anxiety, and learning challenges among other problems at school, and we've been finding ways to represent these real-life stressors in-game, as well as the ways to overcome them through real-life coping mechanisms. This helps to build a toolset to overcome these challenges both in-game and in their day-to-day lives.

We want the game to feel incredibly tight, control-wise. The player should not have to fight the controls. We plan on implementing some movement mechanics as we believe movement progression to be a great source of the feeling of growth in games; when you unlock a new movement ability, there’s usually an audible “oooh” or “gasp” that the player expresses. Hyper Light Drifter is a great resource for game feel; its movement feels freeing and really cool when you execute it right. Celeste is a great example for control tightness.