Final art/visuals for the breathe activity. To keep with the nature theme, I used leaves and grass as borders for the tiger. I also kept the instructions light and clean so that the entire experiences was as relaxing and calm as possible. Playtesting v6 and v5 were good indicators of this activity being successful.
Mindful breathing activity prototype.
Mindful breathing activity prototype.
Inspiration:
I wanted to include a mindfulness activity that focuses on breathing as it is a good way to relax and calm down when feeling overwhelmed with strong negative emotions and thoughts. For inspiration, I looked at a few of these simple ‘mindful breathing’ exercises that are quick and effective. They are also extremely flexible to customise and link to different themes. I knew I wanted to let my target audience decide what kind of visuals they’d like to see, which I cover in playtesting v4, so that I could design the most appropriate and appealing visuals for the game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4NrlmTjjho
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfDTp2GogaQ
My programmer worked on a prototype to put into the game as a placeholder before I decided on the art for the activity. This was used in multiple playtesting sessions and gave people a good understanding of what I envisioned. This was really simple but effective for getting feedback about how it should look. I used online resources to get the timing correct so the players complete the correct breathing cycles.
Following playtesting v6 I made the decision to add another activity into the game as an extra way players could earn coins. Additionally, it seemed that I hadn’t fully captured the CBT essential experience that I intended to as the current version lacked ability for users to engage with their thoughts, feelings and behaviours - the foundations of cognitive behavioural therapy.
Initial idea: 5-4-3-2-1 Technique
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I initially planned to include this 5-4-3-2-1 mindfulness technique into the game, as I knew from semester one that journaling is an effective way of getting individuals to reflect and relax. However, this still didn't tackle the idea of ‘rewiring’ the way we think, so I went back to my initial research and decided that following a simple CBT cycle would be the best activity to achieve my goals.
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This is a drawn mock-up of my initial idea. I shared it with my programmer and he quickly prototyped a version in Unity.
Unity prototype of initial idea
Unity prototype of initial idea
Refined idea:
I used the CBT cycle to structure an activity where players could note down their thoughts, feelings and behaviours. This more accurately allowed users to process what they were thinking, how it made them feel, and how they dealt with it, which is what I aimed for my game to do originally.
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Initial mock-up sketches
https://hudsontherapygroup.com/blog/cognitive-triangle
https://therapy-central.com/how-therapy-works/cbt-therapy-london/
Figma link: https://www.figma.com/file/9xDlPJkxVQwpqDGr5Cm9Be/CBT-Activity?node-id=0%3A1
I used Figma to mock-up the UI designs which was extremely helpful as I got feedback which allowed me to produced the refined version below. After asking others what they thought about the layout, they suggested that I changed the oval shape to a rectangle for more space to write in. The outlined text boxes were most popular and the pink gradient that runs throughout the game aesthetic was also favoured. Overall I think the outcome is effective as it is clear, easy to type in, and covers the CBT element accurately.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guelZvubWFY&t=39s
I followed this YouTube tutorial to help guide me when creating the input fields for each section of the activity.
The users can take a screenshot of their answers and earn a base of 50 coins. I also added an intro to the activity by introducing CBT to the players through a short video (which can be found in the Google Drive), as well as providing some examples of what they should do (as seen in the Figma mock-up above).
I knew I wanted a simple, replayable and familiar mini-game for players to relax to when playing Cogshel. I chose match-3 as this covers all three aims. However, I wanted to make it link closely to my topic of CBT, which was quite a struggle. The plan was to make 6 icons that each represent as positive thought thought/feeling/behaviour & a negative thought/feeling/behaviour. Players would the have to match two positive icons with one negative icon to symbolise the idea that if you focus more on the positives, you will overcome the negative. We tried to create a system that would work but it proved to be too difficult and we encountered several bugs. It was also much more confusing like this and very hard to play, therefore we decided to stick to the traditional match-3 and focus on making the icons link with the theme instead.
Initial prototype used in earliest versions for playtesting.
The grid was way too small and needed to be enlarged for the devices in order to be playable.
Match-3 failed attempt at creating the initial game idea:
Original match-3 template.
Initially planning to show players what each of the icons represented, however, after asking a few members from my target audience, they said they wouldn’t pay much attention to this and would prefer the previous version of the tiger waving as it is more comforting and calming to them.