Relaxation game concept slides

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Danny - Game Lab 3
Relaxation game: Chill Out!
Player Audience:
Adults who have acute phobias or anxiety disorders, and have benefitted from behaviormanagement therapy, but need reinforcement.

Central Concept:
In many people, extreme anxiety can be caused by particular environmental stimuli or conditions, such as
certain animals (e.g. barking dogs), enclosed spaces, crowds, etc. Such anxiety is often expressed in
undesirable symptoms, such as rapid heartbeat, sweating, dizziness, tunnel vision, the urge to flee, etc.
Ability to avoid or reduce the anxiety is likely to prevent or reduce the symptoms as well; thus, successful
reduction of escalated heart rate back to a relaxed level can indicate successful management of the anxiety,
and probable reduction of the other undesirable symptoms. Therapeutic coping mechanisms (visualization,
deep breathing, etc) have proven effective for some individuals in such situations, but may need practice
and reinforcement in novel situations or with heightened stimuli (louder/bigger dogs, very crowded places,
etc). An augmented-reality game could provide such incremental situated reinforcement. Cooperative social
interaction may also provide useful reinforcement.
Having only a rough and possibly out-of-date understanding of this field, I’d need to read the latest research.

Platform:
Smartphone or tablet app, with optional wireless wristband pulse sensor.

Professor Carrie Heeter, Michigan State University

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Danny - Game Lab 3
Play Context:
Initial training mode in a safe, controlled environment (e.g. home); followed by episodic use in
stressful environments for a few minutes at a time.

Modality:
Single-player mode: The player is aware only of own goals and past performance.
Multi-player mode:
The player can opt to share own goals and performance with other players in the world
having a similar anxiety disorder (the players’ real identities would remain hidden).
The player can opt to contribute and receive positive reinforcement (encouragement and
praise) to/from other players; a sort of co-op interaction.

End State:
The player “wins a level” when she is able to maintain a relaxed pulse (with no escalation)
throughout a situational episode that would previously have been anxiety-inducing. The game
is essentially open-ended, as the player might choose to tackle an even more intimidating
situation (the “next level”).

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Danny - Game Lab 3
Core Mechanic:
As the player practices a (previously-learned) coping mechanism, his pulse is measured at
specific intervals. If the wristband sensor is used, it measures the player’s pulse automatically
and relays it to the game app; otherwise, the player uses his fingers to measure pulse (on
wrist or neck) with the aid of the app’s 10-second timer, and records it with an on-screen
number-entry slider.

Presentation:
During a game episode, the app displays the following:
a counter showing the most-recent heart rate;
either a bar graph (showing pulse changes during this episode, and the relaxed rate target)
or a pulsing heart symbol (size correlated with relation to the relaxed heart rate);
a reminder of the player’s chosen coping mechanism (visual and audio prompts);
the sound of a simulated heartbeat, matching the player’s target relaxed heart rate.

(see screen sketches on following slides)


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Danny - Game Lab 3
Measuring heart rate via wrist pulse:

Don Hankins via Flickr


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Danny - Game Lab 3
Screen display
during an episode:
(except when pulse is
being measured)


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Danny - Game Lab 3
Training Mode:
The player can train with the app in a comfortable, relaxing environment (such as at home), so
as to be able to play the game effectively in an authentic anxiety-inducing situation (episode).
In training mode, the player imagines (perhaps with the use of visual aids) being in an anxietyinducing situation, practices the coping mechanisms, and tries to lower her pulse to the
relaxed rate.

Game variables are visible to the player: the current episode’s point value and expected
duration (set with player input), and the relaxed heart rate (measured immediately before the
start of the current episode).


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Danny - Game Lab 3
Feedback:
In all modes:
• Soothing encouragement and praise, both visual (on-screen) and audible (if enabled by
player); frequency correlated to the measured changes in pulse. So if the measured pulse is
rapidly increasing, messages like “Remember to <selected coping strategy> !” would flash
(and be heard) more often; while if the pulse is rapidly decreasing, a message like “You’re
doing great!” would be displayed/heard. The player may be able to pre-select the messages.
• Points awarded at episode completion, depending on the player’s perceived severity of the
situation (set before the episode), the peak heart rate, and the achieved slope of pulse
reduction.
• Reporting of the player’s performance over time and across episodes: score min/max, trend.
In multi-player co-op mode:
• Display of affiliated players’ point goals, high scores and trends.
• Ability to record brief messages (visual and/or audio) of encouragement or praise to send to
other players.


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Danny - Game Lab 3
Progression:
The player can choose the anxiety-inducing situation to enter for each episode, but
circumstances can sometimes vary unpredictably, resulting in more or less anxiety than
expected; so progression in the game depends both on luck and skill.
To increase the challenge and score, the player can:
• increase the anxiety potential of the episode, based on the situation
• increase the planned duration of the episode (exposure to anxiety-causing stimulus)
• decrease the time required to reduce elevated heart rate to a relaxed level
• maintain a relaxed heart rate for a longer period of time


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