Play the game and help autism research

For some people, making use of the rich contextual information that helps us interpret what others say is not easy. One such group are people on the autism spectrum, who sometimes find communication challenging. Our research aims to discover the underlying causes of these communicative challenges, and you can help us to achieve this. How? Play our specially designed two-player game and use your communication skills to crack the vault. The more vaults you crack the better, but we can also benefit from analyzing failures. The game can be played with a touch device or keyboard.

https://arjsto.itch.io/crack-the-vault or www.MutualUnderstanding.nl/game

How to crack the vault

In each round of the game, you and a fellow codebreaker will work together to move your vault keys into a position that will crack the vault's code.

You control one vault key. Your partner controls the other vault key. The catch is that only one of you, the SENDER, gets to see the vault-code. As a SENDER, you must show your partner, the RECEIVER, where and how to position their key as you move your key into position. You will have 10 seconds to communicate and get into position. After 10 seconds, the RECEIVER's turn starts and you can no longer move. As a RECEIVER, you must guess from your partner's movements where to place your key and how to rotate it. You will have 10 seconds to get into position. After 10 seconds, your code is entered and you can no longer move. You will then be shown whether you cracked the vault together or not. This order of events in a round is shown in the animation at the top of this page.

Before each round, you will learn whether you are the SENDER or RECEIVER, and which key you will control. The color of your key (blue or orange) stays the same throughout the game.

As you get better, the vault will become more difficult to crack. The rounds are numbered once you reach Level 2, with Level 11 being the highest possible score.