17/01/2023

Happy New Year and welcome to 2023! There are a lot of great things in store for this project this year.

You might be asking why the name of the game has changed from An Aspie Life: Beginnings to Verbal Void. This is for a few major reasons that I will detail below:

Firstly, Verbal Void has not been a smooth project to develop. I originally titled the game An Aspie Life: Beginnings in its first phase back in 2018 when it was planned to be a free DLC for the original Aspie Life. Since that, it’s been 5 years and a lot has changed in terms of the project relating to its story, characters, gameplay, and overall message.

Secondly, in recent years, questions have been raised around the usage of the term Aspie in the neurodiverse community and new discussions have been formed. I fully support the reasons behind this, and therefore feel it is the correct approach to make sure the game name reflects the current consensus of the community by removing this from the title. The original game An Aspie Life will continue to use its current title as it is a time capsule of my thoughts and feelings as a young neurodiverse individual at the time. With the rename, they will still be part of the same series that I am calling Neuro Adventures.

Finally, on a more personal note, I didn’t think the name An Aspie Life: Beginnings was all that good. I know that quite often people mistake it for the original and it was weirdly long. So I have decided Verbal Void is short and sweet, complimenting the game’s theme of communication and how difficult it can be.

Brad