- Joined
- Jun 9, 2014
Steam link: http://store.steampowered.com/app/511630/Max_an_Autistic_Journey/
UPDATES:
Part 1: (This post.)
Part 2: HERE
Part 3: TBA
I'm new to making LP's but I saw that at no point in the history of this subforum has anyone braved this fantastic piece of trash on Steam. I caught some of this game on a Twitch stream and was impressed with just how janky and bizarre it was so I paid up my 6 dollarydoos to experience it for myself. This thread will be my play log of sorts, and you all are welcome to join.
Max, An Autistic Journey starts out with our titular character's mom and dad speaking to their pediatrician. The doctor's giving them the business over Max's "unique accent" and his obsession with dinosaurs and lack of empathy; as we all know here on the Farms these are the makings of about 95% of the people who have threads here, but Max's parents don't quite know what's up until the doctor has to just come out and say it.
Max has autism.
Mom and Dad are devastated. Lost. You'd think the doc just told them their song has leukemia and has only a few months to live, but no just that he's doomed to a life of social awkwardness and the ability to be really really good at a randomly selected fixation.
"What are we going to do?" asks Mom.
"Everything we can to give him a happy life..." replies Dad.
More on Max's mom in a bit, but let's just say she's not going to be able to deliver on these lofty goals of taking care of her fucking child.
We jump ahead five years. Max is now 10 years old.
It is at this point that the game lays out what's going to hamfistedly be passed as its "plot"; Max will need to get ready for a day at school and only you can help him overcome his daily struggles with autism. See the #1 over on the desk? That's a "Picto", short for "pictogram". According to this game's achievements Max's father has made 21 of them in order to help guide Max through his routines.
PICTO #1: Turn on the lights!
We're less than five minutes into this game and Max has already updated us on the whole "mom" thing. You see, Max's mom just up and fucking left apparently because he doesn't live with his parents; Max lives with his father and his father's girlfriend Gege. I'm not sure if this is officially a stepmother situation or whatever, but I'll just be referring to Gege as that for the sake of convenience.
Did I mention this game is "based on a true story"? Because it is. This is fucking depressing, and Max is too numb from autism to even be remotely aware of it.
Max mentions his flashlight and learns the skill "Flashlight". The screen cracks, shatters, and the pieces blow away. It's our first battle in this game that really doesn't need RPG elements but fuck you the "developer(s)" paid for their copy of RPG Maker VX and god damn it they're going to get their money's worth!
This first fight is against three Wisps that emit autism puzzle pieces. Max's Flashlight skill costs 10 Technical Points (TP) to use, so we've gotta burn a couple of turns earning TP before we can use it. I saved up 30 TP to use Flashlight All, and a beam of holy autistic light flashed out of Max's torch, vaporizing all three enemies in a single turn. Man, this sure is a hard RPG.
The spoils of war were three each of "Small juice box", "Antidote", and "Bottle of water".
Oh, Max's autism also leveled up to 2!
PICTO #2: Get dressed!
Max can't go to school in his pajamas, so he needs to get dressed. He explains to us that his clothes are in his dresser with the teddy bear... except that's not any regular teddy -- it's Freddy Fazbear of Five Nights fame! Yes, they're going there with Max's obsessions. Get used to it too by the way because it only goes downhill from here. Max foams about FNAF and how his father won't let him play it and we're introduced to Max's best friend Adam who's also a big FNAF fan. I'm sure we'll meet him at school... if we can ever get out of this fucking bedroom.
Max opens his drawer, can't find his shit, and immediately starts to panic.
See the meter in the upper right? That's Max's anxiety meter, or "chimp out meter" as I'd like to call it. When it gets into the red Max will have a meltdown and post a ranting journal on DeviantArt or something. I don't know. I just know the meter serves no practical purpose whatsoever and its usage is purely story driven.
Speaking of stories, that's Max's dinosaur talking to him trying to get him to chill out. Max's dinosaur isn't really alive you dumbasses, it's all in his head. This non-copyright-infringing "King of All Monsters" doll is Max's imaginary friend and voice of reason. It shares all of Max's annoying speech problems because he's just talking to himself whenever he appears.
"Max has a vivid imagination!" says the game. That's why for just opening the drawer we're transported into it to find Max's pants and shit.
Max's dresser is full of garbage-tier enemies that are all one-shotted by his Flashlight skill. Even though encounters can come in up to swarms of three enemies per battle there is no challenge whatsoever. Anyways I collected all of Max's crap and the game showed me how to equip them presumably using RPG Maker's built-in "armor" system.
All of Max's clothes have some special ability, such as his underwear which give him the "Wind" ability to use in battle. You get it? Wind? LIKE FARTS?
Max needs affirmations for every damn thing he does, including getting dressed. Again, going by these events Max does this every single day, just shouting across the house to his father that he's put clothes on.

Max has a brother named Jimmy who goes to the same school. Before we can go upstairs to have breakfast and leave we have to check on Jimmy, who's already pacing around his room aimlessly. Without provocation Max barges in and starts talking about pizza and FNAF. Jimmy disregards everything said and replies with "Good morning, it's Monday." Jimmy's the type of nigga to have a Kiwi Farms account.
Max is quiet for a moment before freaking out that his brother is going through puberty and has the beginnings of a mustache saying he "looks like Mario Bros" [sic]. Not "Mario", not "the Mario Bros", just "Mario Bros". This is the first of many basic grammatical mistakes this god awful game is going to make. (They also write things like "OMG" and "LOL" into character dialogue.)
Jimmy tells Max a knock knock joke and Max doesn't understand a single step of the process. Here's a sample of this guy's fire stand-up game:
Knock knock.
(Who's there?)
A little old lady.
(A little old lady who?)
I didn't know you could yodel!
wew lads
Anyways after talking to Jimmy a random spider appears and Jimmy is all like "not this shit again let's kill this spider" and Max replies with some dumb shit about "ALL LIVING CREATURES". Jimmy disregards Max's drivel yet again and they kill the spiders.
Max's autism is now level 3!
Picto #3 also appears on the floor after this battle but I figure now's a good time to end this OP to see if anyone's interested in me continuing this. Thanks for checking out my first LP!
UPDATES:
Part 1: (This post.)
Part 2: HERE
Part 3: TBA
I'm new to making LP's but I saw that at no point in the history of this subforum has anyone braved this fantastic piece of trash on Steam. I caught some of this game on a Twitch stream and was impressed with just how janky and bizarre it was so I paid up my 6 dollarydoos to experience it for myself. This thread will be my play log of sorts, and you all are welcome to join.
Max, An Autistic Journey starts out with our titular character's mom and dad speaking to their pediatrician. The doctor's giving them the business over Max's "unique accent" and his obsession with dinosaurs and lack of empathy; as we all know here on the Farms these are the makings of about 95% of the people who have threads here, but Max's parents don't quite know what's up until the doctor has to just come out and say it.
Max has autism.
Mom and Dad are devastated. Lost. You'd think the doc just told them their song has leukemia and has only a few months to live, but no just that he's doomed to a life of social awkwardness and the ability to be really really good at a randomly selected fixation.
"What are we going to do?" asks Mom.
"Everything we can to give him a happy life..." replies Dad.
More on Max's mom in a bit, but let's just say she's not going to be able to deliver on these lofty goals of taking care of her fucking child.
We jump ahead five years. Max is now 10 years old.
It is at this point that the game lays out what's going to hamfistedly be passed as its "plot"; Max will need to get ready for a day at school and only you can help him overcome his daily struggles with autism. See the #1 over on the desk? That's a "Picto", short for "pictogram". According to this game's achievements Max's father has made 21 of them in order to help guide Max through his routines.
PICTO #1: Turn on the lights!
We're less than five minutes into this game and Max has already updated us on the whole "mom" thing. You see, Max's mom just up and fucking left apparently because he doesn't live with his parents; Max lives with his father and his father's girlfriend Gege. I'm not sure if this is officially a stepmother situation or whatever, but I'll just be referring to Gege as that for the sake of convenience.
Did I mention this game is "based on a true story"? Because it is. This is fucking depressing, and Max is too numb from autism to even be remotely aware of it.
Max mentions his flashlight and learns the skill "Flashlight". The screen cracks, shatters, and the pieces blow away. It's our first battle in this game that really doesn't need RPG elements but fuck you the "developer(s)" paid for their copy of RPG Maker VX and god damn it they're going to get their money's worth!
This first fight is against three Wisps that emit autism puzzle pieces. Max's Flashlight skill costs 10 Technical Points (TP) to use, so we've gotta burn a couple of turns earning TP before we can use it. I saved up 30 TP to use Flashlight All, and a beam of holy autistic light flashed out of Max's torch, vaporizing all three enemies in a single turn. Man, this sure is a hard RPG.
The spoils of war were three each of "Small juice box", "Antidote", and "Bottle of water".
Oh, Max's autism also leveled up to 2!
PICTO #2: Get dressed!
Max can't go to school in his pajamas, so he needs to get dressed. He explains to us that his clothes are in his dresser with the teddy bear... except that's not any regular teddy -- it's Freddy Fazbear of Five Nights fame! Yes, they're going there with Max's obsessions. Get used to it too by the way because it only goes downhill from here. Max foams about FNAF and how his father won't let him play it and we're introduced to Max's best friend Adam who's also a big FNAF fan. I'm sure we'll meet him at school... if we can ever get out of this fucking bedroom.
Max opens his drawer, can't find his shit, and immediately starts to panic.
See the meter in the upper right? That's Max's anxiety meter, or "chimp out meter" as I'd like to call it. When it gets into the red Max will have a meltdown and post a ranting journal on DeviantArt or something. I don't know. I just know the meter serves no practical purpose whatsoever and its usage is purely story driven.
Speaking of stories, that's Max's dinosaur talking to him trying to get him to chill out. Max's dinosaur isn't really alive you dumbasses, it's all in his head. This non-copyright-infringing "King of All Monsters" doll is Max's imaginary friend and voice of reason. It shares all of Max's annoying speech problems because he's just talking to himself whenever he appears.
"Max has a vivid imagination!" says the game. That's why for just opening the drawer we're transported into it to find Max's pants and shit.
Max's dresser is full of garbage-tier enemies that are all one-shotted by his Flashlight skill. Even though encounters can come in up to swarms of three enemies per battle there is no challenge whatsoever. Anyways I collected all of Max's crap and the game showed me how to equip them presumably using RPG Maker's built-in "armor" system.
All of Max's clothes have some special ability, such as his underwear which give him the "Wind" ability to use in battle. You get it? Wind? LIKE FARTS?
Max needs affirmations for every damn thing he does, including getting dressed. Again, going by these events Max does this every single day, just shouting across the house to his father that he's put clothes on.

Max has a brother named Jimmy who goes to the same school. Before we can go upstairs to have breakfast and leave we have to check on Jimmy, who's already pacing around his room aimlessly. Without provocation Max barges in and starts talking about pizza and FNAF. Jimmy disregards everything said and replies with "Good morning, it's Monday." Jimmy's the type of nigga to have a Kiwi Farms account.
Max is quiet for a moment before freaking out that his brother is going through puberty and has the beginnings of a mustache saying he "looks like Mario Bros" [sic]. Not "Mario", not "the Mario Bros", just "Mario Bros". This is the first of many basic grammatical mistakes this god awful game is going to make. (They also write things like "OMG" and "LOL" into character dialogue.)
Jimmy tells Max a knock knock joke and Max doesn't understand a single step of the process. Here's a sample of this guy's fire stand-up game:
Knock knock.
(Who's there?)
A little old lady.
(A little old lady who?)
I didn't know you could yodel!
wew lads
Anyways after talking to Jimmy a random spider appears and Jimmy is all like "not this shit again let's kill this spider" and Max replies with some dumb shit about "ALL LIVING CREATURES". Jimmy disregards Max's drivel yet again and they kill the spiders.
Max's autism is now level 3!
Picto #3 also appears on the floor after this battle but I figure now's a good time to end this OP to see if anyone's interested in me continuing this. Thanks for checking out my first LP!
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