The main character in the video game ‘An Aspie Life’ was modeled after its creator, Bradley Hennessey, who has Asperger’s Syndrome and first designed the game when he was just 16 years old.
I’m standing in front of an arcade machine. I grab the joystick and walk my character into a loud room and the screen starts to shake. I watch the boy on the screen press his hands to his ears as little pixels burst out of him and I try, frantically, to fiddle with the controls to turn the volume down. The experience lasts 10 seconds, but it’s enough to leave me flustered.