I'm autistic and ADHD with a special interest on TTRPGS, and one of my worst ever fears is being "found out" for not being as functional as I make myself appear, and I often feel like a "fraud" of a human being. I strongly resonate with the changeling myth, being something else trying to pass as human.
While I haven't started playing solo ttrpgs yet (currently trying to figure out how to go about it, like having a big 'collection' journal or many small ones), I look forward to this one as I feel it'll give me the opportunity to reflect and work on my fear while engaging in a special interest to soothe myself at the same time !!
If I manage to remember to do it, I'll come back here once I've played to give feedback on my experience :]
Hi! I’m neurospicy and an educator. I’d love a chance to get a community copy of this but I refuse to use the platform formerly known as Twitter because the owner is … well. What he is. Is there another option for contacting you? Thanks!
Hi! I've refilled the community copies, and you can also contact me at alexa(dot)fae(dot)mcdaniel@gmail(dot)com if you need like, a classrooms worth of download codes or something! Itch has tools that let me generate those en-masse if needed!
hello hello!! i played this game with a changeling oc i already had established because they were absolutely perfect for this game. i only had one character for them to have as a confidante, their best friend they went to boarding school with (which they went 2 bc they "acted out" bc of said changeling antics) so i needed to make them some others. i decided upon it being their family and picked myself some names. i decided first to have them confess to their older brother because it was the one that came up first in the narrative and he rolled to be a changeling too. i almost cried.
just-- the concept of my oc, getting sent to boarding school for their problems to get straightened out, while their brother just. somehow escaped that?? was better at hiding it?? i don't even know. it adds a layer of hurt to the comfort of having someone like them. i also just love it so much, it added so much and made my character, who was so disconnected from their family after not seeing them in 10 years, have someone else they could rely on.
i'm so excited to play this again more personally rather than just with an oc but i wanted to share this experience!! thank you for this amazing game <3
I like this a lot, but there's one change I did that made me like it even more. I rolled for how confidantes react before I started.
If I had four confidantes, then I rolled four times and wrote down the results. When a confidante discovered my fairy nature, I would pick one of the results, depending on what made the most sense for that character and the situation. That way their reaction was a little less random and could fit my story better. If anyone tries it this way, tell me how it went and if you liked it.
Hold on, I’m going to ramble a lot here. But the tl;dr: is, I loved it. It was a powerful experience. I recommend trying to play alongside other Neurodivergent friends if possible.
I just played this game with a few other ND friends (Autistic, ADHD plus others). We all seemed to have a pretty powerful experience but I can only speak to my own. I’m an ADHDer and this past year has involved a lot of soul searching. I came across this game at a particularly vulnerable time and had been waiting to play it until I had a group of like-minded folks to play alongside with. Yay parallel play!
I am a member of the Community of Applied Spiritual and Therapeutic Tabletop Gamers (CASTT Gamers) and this game perfectly illustrated how games can help you learn about yourself, the world, your place in the world, and beyond. From just 2 hours of game play I realized why I’m always so burned out, why I feel like I’m never just doing “okay”, and why I always feel like I’m never enough. I knew some of these things beforehand. But Strange Changeling Child condensed all that stuff I “know” into a few hours. It’s a simple game, almost deceptively simple, but it will be sticking with me for a long time.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have any of my confidantes reveal that they were also changelings. This is why I was so grateful for my ND friends to have joined me. Having them there, experiencing it in a similar way, and also relating to all of the experiences that they were willing to share helped validate my experience and make me not feel alone. I think if you’re the type that would struggle with coming up with your own scenarios you could easily add a DM/GM function with a safe friend and IRL confidante.
When I play it again I plan to have my character and the confidantes a little more removed from my real life. I also hope to play into some more fantastical elements and make it more magical. I definitely leaned into the downsides of my neurodivergence and I hope that next time I can elaborate on my fairy magic and what it is for me. I’ll also be making a little chart to make it easier to reference when I change my Fey, and the moves. Just so my brain can more easily digest the information.
Wow. That was long-winded. Overall. This is a deceptively simple game that serves as a fairly perfect allegory for what ND folx, particularly Autists,and maybe just as well, ADHERs. I could see hacking this game for a variety of marginalized identities but ultimately wouldn’t want to change the original intent of the game.
Wow!!! Thank you so much for this, I really appreciate it! I'm also glad that you were able to play this together in a group, that sounds like a tremendously rewarding experience, and if I ever revisit the game for a new edition, then advice for playing with IRL confidantes would be a great idea, thank you so much!!!
I really appreciate this game. I played a relatively short game, with only two confidants, and got a "good" ending with nobody leaving me when they found out my changeling nature. I wasnt expecting myself to be so strongly affected by it, emotionally, and yet, I was STRONGLY affected. Probably because I put my character thru situations similar to what I experienced growing up, oops.
Its an emotionally intense game, and its important to be gentle with yourself if you play it and not bite off more than you could chew.
I'm just always happy to see autistic art, so I bought this game twice, once on its own and once in the fundraiser unsale bundle. Thank you for making this game <3.
Here is our character sheet. Our apologies for our messy handwriting and unorthodox switching of writing directions.
edit: Oh, the itch comments section formatting seems to elongate images. Thats frusturating. It seems like if you open the image in a new tab tho, it displays normally.
Oh my gosh, thank you so much for the thoughtful reply! I'm really glad that the game struck a chord with you, and thank you so much for the additional support while we're fundraising!
I'm not able to see the image, even opening it in a new tab. If you're willing, I'd love it if you emailed it to me at alexa(dot)fae(dot)mcdaniel@gmail(dot)com!
← Return to game
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Thank you so much for the community copies !
I'm autistic and ADHD with a special interest on TTRPGS, and one of my worst ever fears is being "found out" for not being as functional as I make myself appear, and I often feel like a "fraud" of a human being. I strongly resonate with the changeling myth, being something else trying to pass as human.
While I haven't started playing solo ttrpgs yet (currently trying to figure out how to go about it, like having a big 'collection' journal or many small ones), I look forward to this one as I feel it'll give me the opportunity to reflect and work on my fear while engaging in a special interest to soothe myself at the same time !!
If I manage to remember to do it, I'll come back here once I've played to give feedback on my experience :]
And once again, thanks a lot for this game <3
thank you for the community copies
~an autistic uni student
+1
Hi! I’m neurospicy and an educator. I’d love a chance to get a community copy of this but I refuse to use the platform formerly known as Twitter because the owner is … well. What he is. Is there another option for contacting you? Thanks!
Hi! I've refilled the community copies, and you can also contact me at alexa(dot)fae(dot)mcdaniel@gmail(dot)com if you need like, a classrooms worth of download codes or something! Itch has tools that let me generate those en-masse if needed!
Thank you! After I play through it I may be on contact with you about that! And will definitely leave a review.
hello hello!! i played this game with a changeling oc i already had established because they were absolutely perfect for this game. i only had one character for them to have as a confidante, their best friend they went to boarding school with (which they went 2 bc they "acted out" bc of said changeling antics) so i needed to make them some others. i decided upon it being their family and picked myself some names. i decided first to have them confess to their older brother because it was the one that came up first in the narrative and he rolled to be a changeling too. i almost cried.
just-- the concept of my oc, getting sent to boarding school for their problems to get straightened out, while their brother just. somehow escaped that?? was better at hiding it?? i don't even know. it adds a layer of hurt to the comfort of having someone like them. i also just love it so much, it added so much and made my character, who was so disconnected from their family after not seeing them in 10 years, have someone else they could rely on.
i'm so excited to play this again more personally rather than just with an oc but i wanted to share this experience!! thank you for this amazing game <3
I like this a lot, but there's one change I did that made me like it even more. I rolled for how confidantes react before I started.
If I had four confidantes, then I rolled four times and wrote down the results. When a confidante discovered my fairy nature, I would pick one of the results, depending on what made the most sense for that character and the situation. That way their reaction was a little less random and could fit my story better. If anyone tries it this way, tell me how it went and if you liked it.
All my love, Sage.
Hold on, I’m going to ramble a lot here. But the tl;dr: is, I loved it. It was a powerful experience. I recommend trying to play alongside other Neurodivergent friends if possible.
I just played this game with a few other ND friends (Autistic, ADHD plus others). We all seemed to have a pretty powerful experience but I can only speak to my own. I’m an ADHDer and this past year has involved a lot of soul searching. I came across this game at a particularly vulnerable time and had been waiting to play it until I had a group of like-minded folks to play alongside with. Yay parallel play!
I am a member of the Community of Applied Spiritual and Therapeutic Tabletop Gamers (CASTT Gamers) and this game perfectly illustrated how games can help you learn about yourself, the world, your place in the world, and beyond. From just 2 hours of game play I realized why I’m always so burned out, why I feel like I’m never just doing “okay”, and why I always feel like I’m never enough. I knew some of these things beforehand. But Strange Changeling Child condensed all that stuff I “know” into a few hours. It’s a simple game, almost deceptively simple, but it will be sticking with me for a long time.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have any of my confidantes reveal that they were also changelings. This is why I was so grateful for my ND friends to have joined me. Having them there, experiencing it in a similar way, and also relating to all of the experiences that they were willing to share helped validate my experience and make me not feel alone. I think if you’re the type that would struggle with coming up with your own scenarios you could easily add a DM/GM function with a safe friend and IRL confidante.
When I play it again I plan to have my character and the confidantes a little more removed from my real life. I also hope to play into some more fantastical elements and make it more magical. I definitely leaned into the downsides of my neurodivergence and I hope that next time I can elaborate on my fairy magic and what it is for me. I’ll also be making a little chart to make it easier to reference when I change my Fey, and the moves. Just so my brain can more easily digest the information.
Wow. That was long-winded. Overall. This is a deceptively simple game that serves as a fairly perfect allegory for what ND folx, particularly Autists,and maybe just as well, ADHERs. I could see hacking this game for a variety of marginalized identities but ultimately wouldn’t want to change the original intent of the game.
Thank you for this game <3
Wow!!! Thank you so much for this, I really appreciate it! I'm also glad that you were able to play this together in a group, that sounds like a tremendously rewarding experience, and if I ever revisit the game for a new edition, then advice for playing with IRL confidantes would be a great idea, thank you so much!!!
I would be happy to help in any way. I see myself revisiting your game several times in my near future.
I really appreciate this game. I played a relatively short game, with only two confidants, and got a "good" ending with nobody leaving me when they found out my changeling nature. I wasnt expecting myself to be so strongly affected by it, emotionally, and yet, I was STRONGLY affected. Probably because I put my character thru situations similar to what I experienced growing up, oops.
Its an emotionally intense game, and its important to be gentle with yourself if you play it and not bite off more than you could chew.
I'm just always happy to see autistic art, so I bought this game twice, once on its own and once in the fundraiser unsale bundle. Thank you for making this game <3.
Here is our character sheet. Our apologies for our messy handwriting and unorthodox switching of writing directions.
edit: Oh, the itch comments section formatting seems to elongate images. Thats frusturating. It seems like if you open the image in a new tab tho, it displays normally.
Oh my gosh, thank you so much for the thoughtful reply! I'm really glad that the game struck a chord with you, and thank you so much for the additional support while we're fundraising!
I'm not able to see the image, even opening it in a new tab. If you're willing, I'd love it if you emailed it to me at alexa(dot)fae(dot)mcdaniel@gmail(dot)com!