‘The Immersive Safe Space’ is a multi-sensory gameplay experience designed to encourage both physical and emotional regulation, through engaging visuals and sound.

Players are provided with a physical space consisting of mesmerising visuals and music, composed to evoke feelings of calm and relaxation. The physical space will feature a surround sound system and the visuals will be projected onto its walls, creating full immersion around the player. We have designed this space with the intention to provide schools and workplaces with a tool of intervention that will help users manage their feelings and symptoms of anxiety and stress.

Players are expected to reflect upon their experience through the use of a supporting application. The purpose of this is to allow them to practice techniques of self-reflection, expression, and self-awareness, which can benefit them in the moment as well as be applied to future scenarios when they may be experiencing similar distress. The app will task the player to create a plan of action for the day ahead, potentially through drag and drop options.

Research

Our research was focused on exploring strategies to manage mental and physical health such as engaging the senses, mindfulness and grounding techniques. Primarily looking at therapy tools and exercises people can practice from the comfort of their homes. By looking into these techniques, we were able to come up with effective features and mechanics to implement into our design.

From our research into self-help and therapy techniques we established how people can use self-stimulating behaviours to manage their feelings when overwhelmed or overstimulated. Sight and sound were identified to be the most sensitive input and we have explored how we could use such to create an environment that will supply a player with the right conditions for successful regulation.

Research Links for Regulation:

Emilia: **https://ep3g19.wixsite.com/year3/regulationresearch**

Kiera: https://languid-racer-268.notion.site/Self-Help-Self-Regulation-Gamified-5d0ea8c814844594aaf328a3507b4f10

Immersion and Immersive Technology

This follows on to our next major focus. An important aspect of our game is to achieve full immersion and player engagement. Therefore, our research was heavily based on immersive technology and multi-sensory experiences, involving ways we could curate a space to accomplish this. During phase three, we visited two influential spaces which blend both physical and digital worlds together through the means of Mixed Reality.

‘The Astrodome’ - An inflatable dome that uses projection mapping to display 360 degree visuals used by the Astrophysics department.