In my transition to game development, I wanted to tackle a challenge that would surround key tools I would need to understand a game engine as well as incorporate my psychology degree in a meaningful way. That’s when I landed on the idea of a VR module for mental health as my next project, a project I named, equanimity.

What is equanimity?

Equanimity is a  Unity VR application that aims to reduce anxiety and stress through interactive modules. Utilizing researched psychology techniques such as color and varied activities, the module(s) walks the user through stress-reducing movements, interactions, and tasks over a  short period of time to create a sense of equanimity and reduce stress.

Check out the itch page!

My goal in my engineering career is to create new and innovative ways to help the community. I have always been interested in the idea of “cozy gaming” or a “cozy lifestyle”. For some background on these terms, cozy gaming refers to those who play games that typically cater towards lowering stress or provide an aspect of the design that users find to be comforting. This may include music, color, environment, and more. Some of these games include Stardew Valley, Slime Rancher, and many more. In turn, the idea of a cozy lifestyle reflects the same sentiment, buying or doing things that make a person feel “cozy” can often be activities or practices that help the person reduce stress and anxiety. Taking this concept, I wanted to tie my psychology background into my software engineering one and create a new interactive space that researches these methods and provides a space that reduces stress, even if it’s just for a couple of moments.

Research

Based on the research gathered, the chosen implementation methods were based on extensive research on the following categories: best anxiety-reducing methods, color theory, environmental design, sound design, meditation methods, and basic activities that reduce stress from experts within the psychology field. The idea was to gather the best practices for reducing anxiety and create an interactive environment based on these combined methods.  Through research and a user study, the implemented methods for this module.

In addition to the outside research conducted for initial background, a user study was conducted on about 36 client-users pertaining to preferences within a gaming space prior, and user testing during the development of this research. Then a second round of user testing during development. This pre-evaluation aimed to collect information on a client-user’s prior experience with virtual reality, gaming, and anxiety, using Google Forms and a series of informal interviews.

The results of the pre-evaluation resulted in seeing a clear “winner” in certain categories. To expand on the demographic, most interviewed we students (18-25) that were asked to fill out this form were also within the College of Engineering at Cal Poly. A demographic that is already exposed to the gaming industry as well as the semblance of virtual reality. Acknowledging that bias, we can see that the categories do not necessarily reflect how virtual is perceived by most and the anxiety level may be higher due to the status of being a student. 

Tech Stack

For this project, the main tool will be Unity and Unity’s extended tools. I will also be using the basis of Vive’s utility tools for basic movements and actions within the VR environment. I will be using the HTC Vive Cosmos for development and testing.

Packages Used: OpenXR, XR Interaction Toolkit, XR Plugin Management

Design

The design is split into two parts, the UI that the user is presented with at the beginning of the application (settings screen and profile screen too), and the environment and activity, in this case, that will be a singular environment.

UI: Shown below are the different iterations of UI flows

Module Environment: Aiming for a forest-like low-poly environment. If possible, customize the lighting or the primary color to the user’s favorites

Further Development

This is an ongoing project, and I hope to keep you all in the loop as to how development unfolds. Look out for dev logs that go over the environmental design and the research results!

Prospective Devlopment Timeline

• Finalizing Quiz Navigation

• Adding other Modules

• VR Refinement & Updates

• Playtesting

• Refinement of Controls, Environement, etc.

• Steam Release