LifeLaunch Virtual Adventures
Accessible Virtual Adventures where older students experience the natural consequences of their real-world decisions in a safe, non-judgemental setting.
Under funding from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research and the National Institutes of Health, these stories have been created by researchers, practicing teachers, counselors and individuals with lived experience of each disability. We capture their experience and transform it into a virtual adventure story.
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These are highly engaging and entertaining learning tools, as they situate the player in real-world scenarios where they can practice life skills in a non-judgmental setting. Think of each story as an accessible computer-based “choose-your-own-adventure” where the player is presented with hundreds of “decision points”, and the story plot proceeds based on the player’s choice. The player experiences the outcome of their decisions in a safe, non-judgmental, virtual environment.
Fern Grove
Skills: Social skills
Population: Blind or low vision, middle school
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Fern Grove takes students with visual impairments on an immersive journey through life as a middle schooler.
Beginning with the first days of school, the player experiences the process of making friends, joining clubs, and challenging themselves to self-advocate and grow as a student, peer, and person. The game ends with an exciting field trip to New York City, where players utilize all the skills they've practiced.
Five essential skill types are highlighted and tested: self-advocacy, friendship with peers, interactions with adults, self-awareness of the player's own skills and limitations, and general social skills.
Lilymist Valley
Skills: Workplace readiness
Population: Blind or low vision, high school
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Embark on a quest to get your very first job and try to maintain it as a visually impaired high school student.
You'll learn skills through interactive resume building, job applications, following up with employers, clothes shopping, interview prep & execution, and on-the-job training with scenarios. Each learning objective is evaluated based on factors ranging from performance to self-advocacy. When you arrive at your aunt & uncle's house in Lilymist Valley for the summer, you'll quickly discover that there are talents within yourself to unveil, and friendships to build for a lifetime.
Freshmen & Fastballs
Skills: Executive Functioning skills
Population: ASD, ADHD, high school, early college
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​Freshmen & Fastballs follows the Fighting Ferrets, a fictional co-ed college baseball team!
The game primarily focuses on reinforcing important Executive Functioning skills like studying habits, focusing techniques, self-care routines, and time management. The player is a Freshman with ADHD attending their second semester of college at Black Forest University. They are also a starting baseman for the Fighting Ferrets.
As they juggle all the responsibilities of both a student and an athlete, the player will make new friends, study for midterms, play in baseball games, and learn about ASD and Depression.
Finally a Freshman
Skills: Self-advocacy, hygiene, social interactions
Population: ASD, high school, early college
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​Finally a Freshman allows players to experience their first semester of college as a student with ASD.
At the fictional Kora College, players will explore pre-college preparations, roommate drama, accommodation meetings, group work, college clubs, and a whole manner of other important and exciting early college scenarios.
Throughout the game, players are expected to self-advocate, manage their schedules, and maintain good hygiene. Failure to do so may alter several of the player’s interactions with other characters, and drastically change the outcome of the story.
Social Storm
Skills: Independent Living, Self-Advocacy, College Readiness
Population: ASD, high school, early college
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A fancy honors lunch. A house party that was never meant to happen. A rainstorm of epic proportions.
In Social Storm, players engage in difficult conversations with influential people whose respect they need to gain. They approach experts for help in high-pressure situations, and they tackle the hardest part of self-advocacy: standing up to those they admire most.
Players practice executive function skills such as time management and adaptive thinking, as well as learning to read social situations and cope with distress and overwhelm, all while playing through an interactive, choice-based narrative.
Finding Your Voice
Skills: Communication, Self-Advocacy, College Readiness
Population: ASD, high school, early college
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​Finding Your Voice allows students to experience life as a sophomore in college, with all its fun and variety. There are pizza parties and trivia contests, drama in the pool hall and in the classroom, service projects and apartment-hunting with friends.
Along the way, players will practice self-determination and self-advocacy while making choices that affect how the game proceeds. They will have opportunities to manage stress levels and choose dialogue options that change how other characters in the game relate to them.
The game can be replayed with different choices leading to new dialogue options and scenarios.
