#DES230 THERAPEUTIC GAMING APP

we are focusing on how depression is becoming a risk to the community of young New Zealanders.

Designed by : Hien Do, hdo036 – Roy Tam, ctam883 – Anna Chen, zche448

#healthycommunities

INTRODUCTION

The main theme that we based our project and research on was mental illnesses/disorders, specifically depression. Mental health is a major factor in what makes a healthy community and is also a major issue because a large percentage of people into today's society has some sort of mental disorder whether its the most common one, depression, or things like anxiety, insomnia and a variety of others. to create a healthy community we must first look after everyone's mental wellbeing because that is the most important factor along with a person's physical wellbeing. Our goal is to provide some sort of easily accessible form of support for people dealing with depression.

DESIGN PROCESS

Our initial concepts are shown in the photos above after we created our research plan, this was later reduced down to the idea of therapeutic mobile game because the idea of a therapy app and social support groups are too vague and we didn't think it has much space for creative ideas and the idea of support animals can be limited in terms of its reach in clients and users due to factors such as personal preferences, family and living environment so in the end we all decided on some form of mobile game.

DESIGN STRATEGY

With the main theme being depression the potential solution we came up with is intended to help aid people with mental disorders. The game would be a free world game where the player's avatar is able to move freely and has the ability to fully customise their surroundings (landscape, weather etc) and avatar, this customisable aspect of the game was decided after some research on chromotherapy, which is a form of therapy where colour has the ability to affect a person state of mind in certain ways and with the avatar also being customisable this allows players to feel more immersed into the game. Also with the research of a form of therapy called receptive music therapy, which is an effective form of aural therapy including things such as music, spoken word and ambient noises we have decided to included customisable soundtrack choices and ambient noises such as weather, movement sounds and more.

The gameplay and concept for this game are that a player is brought to an empty planet where they can slowly start to build their ideal world with their friends or by themselves, they also have the choice of completing missions and tasks which can help them earn in-game currency to buy things for their world, the task and missions will be designed based off common therapeutic and psychological exercises commonly used to aid patients in therapy sessions, with tasks related to colour and patterns. Some tasks will be directly derived from common psychological tests and players will have the choice of having the tasks sent to a professional to be analysed and evaluated.

The game will also feature chatrooms for players to communicate and talk about their problems etc with other real-life players in real-time, similar to therapy groups. Players will also be given the choice to join specific groups tailored to their disorders and struggles allowing for players to not be too completely immersed in the gaming environment but to allow them to have a chance in real life communications whether it is through text or voice chats.

IMPACT

With mental wellbeing such a huge part of a healthy community this game which is designed to help people with struggling with depression and other mental illnesses cope with their issues, allows people to communicate more and feel more comfortable with their issues and not feel left out, because what a healthy community means is that everyone feels like they have a place where they belong and that their physical and mental health is in a good place. The game is not only limited to people with mental disorders and can also range from people who feel stressed and just want a stress relief to people who just want to play a game, so the potential impact of this game is that everyone feels included no matter what kind of people they are and what struggles they might be dealing with.

CONCLUSION

The process of designing a solution for mental health in order to create a healthy community was interesting because we all has slightly different approaches to mental disorders and we had our own values and view on a depression, but what we all had in common as a team is that our idea of a healthy community was to allow everyone to feel included, which we achieved through our app intended to aid people with depression. #des230