'When he was young he had a very limited vocabulary and a very limited way to express himself. 'Minecraft was massively important to us,' he says. It was a moment of first contact-setting aside his role as a caretaker to feel like a dad.
But he still speaks about Minecraft like a revolution in his relationship with his son. Stuart grew up playing videogames, so he didn't have to learn a new medium to navigate a polyhedral world. You can overlay your behavioral needs on top of the game.' There's no mission structure, no one is yelling at you to go down some corridor. There's this sense of freedom in the game as well. You take your stone and wood and you make a pickaxe. In Minecraft you pretty much know whatever you're gonna get. 'Unpredictable things like everyday life are very scary. My son relies on predictable systems,' he says.
'The key thing about Minecraft is it allows you to be creative with very fixed rules and systems. A part of his life is now spent translating the game for other perplexed parents. The Guardian's game critic Keith Stuart published a novel called A Boy Made of Blocks, which was directly inspired by his experience sharing Minecraft with his autistic son.
There's been a lot of pediatric theorizing about why kids on the spectrum are attracted to Minecraft, but more importantly, the trend has pushed a lot of adults to acquaint themselves with the game in order to acquaint themselves with their children.
