Autcraft

Founded in 2013, Autcraft was the first Minecraft server created with autism in mind. It was founded by Stuart Duncan, a web developer in Timmins, Canada whose son is diagnosed with autism, and is known in-game as AutismFather.^[2][3] Autcraft was created so such children could play their favourite game with others without facing the threat of bullying and discrimination.^[4][5] Autcraft is administrated by adults with and without mental conditions as well as their friends or family.^[6][7] As of February 2026, the server has over 20,000 whitelisted players.^[8]

When asked about the server, Duncan stated, "We just let them know that they're not alone... We're here for each other and will support each other for as long as need be... We all know how terrible it can feel sometimes and none of us want the others to feel that same way."^[6]

Autcraft was the subject of a 2015 conference paper by Ringland et al. in which empirical data was gathered from a digital ethnography of the server to explore how parents of autistic children continually create a "safe" virtual world through both implicit and explicit means.^[9]

Autcraft's gameplay is mostly similar to vanilla (unmodded) Minecraft, however offers a variety of server plugins to facilitate moderation, prevent griefing (unauthorized destruction of another player's builds or items), let players make shops, and add custom crafting recipes. It also offers Player Of The Week (POTW) events, in which an outstanding player is selected as the POTW in an event, as well as Darkness Fights, where players must fight waves of both normal enemies and significantly stronger custom bosses collaboratively. Oftentimes these bosses will drop rare, sought after items, such as a wearable head that gives you a permanent beneficial effect, or simply a trophy.

There are eleven ranks on Autcraft, three of which are staff ranks. The staff ranks are Helper, Senior Helper (officially known as SrHelper), or Admin. The staff team are alerted (via the social media platform Discord) for things like writing signs, books, items, or when a new player joins, among many other things.^[10]