anamorphose

Hi guys! I'm a big fan, I was just diagnosed with ADHD-C this past October at the age of 23, so I've been doing my best to learn as much as I can about ADHD and your videos are very informative.

I am a video game developer, and A couple months ago I participated in a game jam (an event where groups are challenged to make a prototype for a game over the course of a single weekend) where I made a VR game intended to inform/educate about what it is like to have ADHD called Just Focus*. It sets the player in a classroom, and the player is told to pay attention in case of a pop quiz. When the player hits start, a video going over some of the facts about ADHD is playing up front. The player can only hear it at full volume if they are looking directly at it for a certain length of time. Meanwhile, the classroom is full of distracting noises - cell phones buzzing, the clock ticking, etc. There is also a chance of "intrusive thoughts" popping up randomly - little black clouds that will steal all your focus/demand your attention by lowering the sound from the video until you "pop" them by throwing a paper airplane.

It is very much a prototype right now - but there is a lot more I want to do with it. I want to stress that it is not meant to help people with ADHD so much as it is meant to help the people who DON'T have it understand what it is like. So, my question for you is, what do you two expect from a game like that? What sort of things could I add to help make it more informative without making it feel more like a lecture than a game?

*If you happen to have access to an HTC Vive or Oculus Rift, here's a link to the download page for Just Focus: https://dabinkdesign.itch.io/just-focus

Since it is a VR game, uncontrollable camera movement would be very uncomfortable for the player. Rather than physically forcing the player's visual attention somewhere, the game makes heavy use of audio to cue to the player that their "focus" is being drawn elsewhere. This is a good idea for a mechanic for a non-VR version though, which someone else did request, so thanks for the idea!