About

Online educational games are popular resources for many parents and teachers. For deaf middle and high school students, there are very few accessible online games and resources. That’s why Deafverse, the first-ever American Sign Language (ASL) accessible online game for deaf teenagers, was developed by a team of deaf creators and educators at the National Deaf Center on Postsecondary Outcomes.

Deafverse is a free, choose-your-own-adventure game that is equally focused on skill-building and fun. It is specifically designed for deaf players to experience first-person gameplay through different worlds.

Deafverse is an opportunity for deaf teens to practice self-determination — the process by which people make their own choices and decisions — and build self-advocacy skills by allowing them to make mistakes in a safe environment. Research shows these skills and self-beliefs are essential for success during and after high school.

More than 6,000 people have played Deafverse, and countless educators have incorporated it into their classrooms and learning plans. Join them today!

Meet the Team

The game and its curriculum are designed, written, and engineered by deaf creators, software engineers, artists, and researchers at the National Deaf Center on Postsecondary Outcomes. The Deafverse team includes the following people–all former teenagers themselves!
Cartoon of Justin in his Deafverse motion capture suit, in intense mid-sign of karts racing, one hand with “3” handshape but the other is a real, cartoon Mario Kart 64 kart.

Justin Perez

Narrator
Violet and Enza stand back-to-back, in their Deafverse set clothes. Violet is holding goggles (the same one Justin wears) and Enza has one hand on her earphones and another hand pointing into a direction.

Violet & Enza

Actresses
Kent in Qui-Gon Jedi robes, green lightsaber in one hand, reading a book in the other hand.

Kent Turner

Game Designer
William in Piccolo attire, speeding along in a bicycle, in a leaned-over racing pose.

William Albright

Programmer
Carlisle in Mulanl gear, drawing pad in one hand, and pencil/pen in another hand. A pokemon sits on their shoulder.

Carlisle Robinson

Cartoonist
Omar is drawn as one of the characters from Disney/Pixas’s Coco. A skeleton with glasses, black shirt, baseball cap on backwards, tan shorts, and Converse shoes. He is leaning back in a rolling office chair, feet up on an angry Koopa like an ottoman. A laptop is on his lap, a Mario 64 star sticker in the middle of the back of the laptop.

Omar Guzman

Graphic Designer
A cartoon of Brigitte dressed in Jedi robes, posing with tape measure in her hands, her left eyebrow cocked, a grin on her face.

Brit Macias

Costume Designer
Bradley wears a black outfit with a black trench coat. Next to him is Ruan in a red and gray suit holding a dog in one arm. Between them is a playing card designed with a yellow door in the middle, with the letters "B" and "D" and the video camera icon.

Bradley Gantt & Ruan DuPlessis

Filmmakers
Chase wears a black outfit and red bandanna across his mouth holds two reels of film.

Chase Burton

Media Producer
Lore as Lagertha, complete with a round shield in one hand but an oversized pencil that could look like a sword in the other hand.

Lore Kinast

Script Editor
Zane wears a vintage battle outfit with spikes. In one hand is a scroll and in the other is a feather pen.

Zane Fleming

Game Program Coordinator

Tia Ivanko

Producer
Carrie Lou wears a vintage teacher's outfit with a long skirt. Holding up an open book, she looks inside it while holding a pencil in her mouth.

Carrie Lou Bloom

Producer

About National Deaf Center

As deaf people leave high school and prepare for college or careers, the National Deaf Center wants them to succeed. Our research shows that deaf people are not completing college degrees, getting jobs, or earning as much as hearing people. We’re here to change that.

The National Deaf Center’s mission is to close the substantial gaps in education and employment that exist for deaf people in the United States and its territories. We are a technical assistance and dissemination center federally funded by the Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) to provide evidence-based strategies at the local, state, and national levels.

To learn more about the National Deaf Center, please visit our main ‘About’ page.