Why we’re building our mental health product as a mobile gaming experience
We’re building mindora, a mental health self-management product, as a mobile game. I often get asked, particularly from friends in the healthcare industry — “why games?”
My expertise is in healthcare and machine learning and while I enjoy both mobile and console games, you won’t see me streaming on Twitch (yet). My co-founder Dario, on the other hand, is a veteran of the gaming industry. He’s built game engines and systems at both AAA and indie game studios like Gameloft and Get Set Games and previously founded an indie game studio.
We’ve both experienced mental health struggles and frankly we’re fed up with the reactive nature of today’s mental health care. We are passionate about helping consumers proactively support their mental health. So why would we build our product as a game based experience for individuals to explore and support their mental health? We have a few reasons to share!
Games are fun and insanely popular!
Mental health is stressful enough! There is no shortage of approaches you can take to support your mental health — meditation, mood tracking, even journaling. However, these practices can be tough to maintain and even a bit of a chore. Let’s be honest. How many of us in the New Year resolved to be more “mindful”, and are having trouble keeping up with it?
We’re building our mental health app as a mobile gaming experience so that people can manage their mental health in a familiar, fun, and engaging manner. Over 2.8B people worldwide play mobile games and contrary to what you might think, it’s not just Gen Z and Millenials who enjoy games [1]. Recent research from AARP estimates that 45% of US adults over 50 years old play video games at least once a month and 84% of those who game use their mobile phone to do so [2]. Building healthy habits is hard and supporting your mental health through all of life’s hills and valleys is tough. We’re building our product to be fun while interweaving both scientific intention and entertainment value.
Games provide a structured platform to help you build skills and progress
A lot of mobile apps have incorporated gamification into their products but they typically limit their application to rewards and achievements. Achievements are certainly a critical element in the rewarding aspects of gamification. Yet, achievements in video games are explicitly tied to skill progression which many apps often overlook when seeking to incorporate gamification features into their product. Games are designed to provide structure and skill progression with the rewards that are granted to users being inherently valuable to them, either as a status symbol to compare to others or because with the rewards they can unlock new features. Mindora includes multiple mini-games which measure changes in cognition, help users understand and express their emotions, and develop skills which can be used to manage mental health such as identification of cognitive distortions and expressing positive affirmations. Skill progression is present in our games when feasible and applicable. Rewards and quests are designed to align closely with skill progression and unlock new functionality for users.
Games are a valuable source of scientific data on cognition and behavior
Cognitive assessments are computerized tasks and puzzles typically performed under (time) pressure. They’re utilized by clinicians and researchers to capture cognitive measurements such as working memory, selective attention, and reaction time. These assessments are also quite similar to many popular game mechanics. Building gamified versions of frequently utilized cognitive assessments can therefore serve as a valuable source of data on cognitive measurements such as working memory and selective attention.
Moreover, studies have shown changes in gameplay behavior including popular consumer mobile games like Candy Crush and Fruit Ninja can be associated with changes in cognition and mood [3–5]. We’re building mindora to measure cognition and help users express their mood as well as pick up subtle changes in user gameplay behavior. We’re a science-based and driven organization so research is a critical component of our work. Not only do we want to empower people with their mental health, we want to further our collective understanding of mental health.
References
[1] Zendle, D., Flick, C., Halgarth, D. et al. Cross-cultural patterns in mobile playtime: an analysis of 118 billion hours of human data. Sci Rep 13, 386 (2023).
[2] Kakulla, B. The 50-plus gamer of today and tomorrow. AARP Research. (2023).
[3] Gao, Y., Bianchi-Berthouze, N. & Meng, H. What Does Touch Tell Us about Emotions in Touchscreen-Based Gameplay? ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact. 19, 1–30 (2012).
[4] Intarasirisawat, J. et al. An Automated Mobile Game-based Screening Tool for Patients with Alcohol Dependence. Proc. ACM Interact. Mob. Wearable Ubiquitous Technol. 4, 1–23 (2020).
[5] Intarasirisawat, J., Ang, C. S., Efstratiou, C., Dickens, L. W. F. & Page, R. Exploring the Touch and Motion Features in Game-Based Cognitive Assessments. Proc. ACM Interact. Mob. Wearable Ubiquitous Technol. 3, 1–25 (2019).
