“Self Care and Improving our Mental Health”

Over the past few months, we have created a game that corresponds with the game prompt, “In the midst of COVID-19 and social distancing, it is more important than ever to connect with friends and family, find ways to manage your stress and take good care of yourself. Make a game that addresses one of these issues.” Our game is called “Self-Care & Improving Our Mental Health”.

Our project includes two mini-games that illustrate how people can use different ways to maintain their self-care. We also included QR codes that the player can scan to view images and animations. The animation is a breathing exercise for the player to complete whenever he or she needs to feel calm or focused. The two images are pictures of how to manage your stress and ways to practice self-care. Additionally, the mini-games included in our project are a Memory game and a Self-Care game. In the memory game, there are 6 pairs that are randomly mixed up. The player is able to find the matching cards that correspond with each other. But, the player has to wait for both cards they picked to return back to the front side before they can pick again. This will allow for any glitches or bugs to be prevented. The memory cards have positive images on the other side of the cards, and have motivational quotes for the player to read and remember. However, the other game called Self-Care shows the player how to only surround themselves with positive energy and not interact with negative energy. The player uses the mouse pointer to control the character and not let them hit any of the obstacles. The obstacles consist of stress/anxiety and negative energy. If the player hits them, then it will be game over and the player will have the option to either try again, start from home, or go to settings.

Furthermore, we also have an information page that informs the player about COVID-19 and the possible symptoms of COVID-19. It also tells the player how to prevent increasing their chances of getting COVID-19. Overall, our game displays the game design prompt, and has special features that better show self-care and mental health during the pandemic.

We included a special feature in our game. We included a code that allows for everything we wrote to be read to the player if they would like. The player would go to settings and press “on” for text to speech. The reason why we incorporated this feature was that we thought the game should not be limited to those who are sighted but allow for the game to be accessible to anyone. This feature also lets people with dyslexia and people who have trouble reading be able to hear the information. Now, they will not feel left out. Scratch is shown as an image, so it is hard for some people to understand a scratch project. In conclusion, our game, “Self-Care & Improving Our Mental Health” shows different ways to manage stress and take good care of yourself, our feature also allows for our game to be accessible to anyone who chooses to play.

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