Promoting Emotion Regulation Skills: Development of a Serious Game for Adolescents

Abstract

Adolescence involves major changes in emotional experience, social relationships, and self-regulation capacities, making this period especially relevant for the development of emotion regulation (ER) skills. During this stage, the ability to regulate emotions plays a fundamental role in psychological well-being, interpersonal relationships, and adaptation to everyday challenges. Despite the growing importance of ER, relatively few digital interventions and serious games (SG) have been specifically designed to promote these skills among adolescents in a preventive and educational context. This dissertation aimed to contribute to this field through the expansion and redesign of GamEmotion, a SG developed to promote ER skills among adolescents. The work began with a systematic literature review conducted according to the PRISMA guidelines, aiming to identify existing SG and digital interventions targeting adolescent ER, the regulation strategies addressed by these interventions, and the game design elements most frequently employed. The review identified thirteen relevant studies and highlighted the importance of grounding digital interventions in established theoretical frameworks, while also revealing the need to broaden the range of emotional experiences and regulation strategies addressed by existing games. Based on the findings of the review and on established ER theories, GamEmotion was subsequently redesigned and expanded. The main contributions include the introduction of four complex emotions particularly relevant during adolescence-anxiety, envy, guilt, and shame-through the development of new castles, mechanics, and gameplay challenges. Significant improvements were also implemented in the user interface, progression systems, player journal, and overall game architecture. Furthermore, a new area dedicated to teaching ER strategies was also implemented, complementing the original focus of the game on emotional recognition and understanding. Although the initial methodology included co-design activities and evaluation with adolescent participants, recruitment difficulties and time constraints led to a redefinition of the project scope. As a result, the dissertation focused primarily on the redesign and implementation of the proposed features and did not include an empirical evaluation of the final version of the game. The resulting work demonstrates the feasibility of expanding existing interventions through the integration of new emotional content, educational features, and theory-driven gameplay mechanics. The redesigned version of GamEmotion provides a solid foundation for future evaluation studies and continued development as a tool for promoting ER skills among adolescents.