about the game
DEEP IS A MEDITATIVE VR GAME CONTROLLED BY BREATHING
A custom controller measures diaphragm expansion in order to sense deep breathing. This information is fed back to the player in a variety of visual cues, intimately linking their consciousness and breath.
The environment's layout gently encourages the player to slow their breath, to sink deeper and relax. It can be played for therapeutic or aesthetic reasons, and does not require the use on arms, legs or hands.
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“(Deep) was calming, and I began to experience the sense of peace I brushed against in my other experiments in meditation ... for me, for a few minutes, it worked.”
Ben Kuchera - Polygon
Related updates
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top update
GEMH lab featured in Het Jeugdjournaal
Hanneke Scholten - 26-11-2018Last Friday GEMH lab was featured in Het Jeugdjournaal to explain why games can help children to overcome their problems, such as anxiety. Het Jeugdjournaal is a Dutch news show that aims to educate children about worldwide and national news.
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top update
Hot off the press: a paper about the use of design thinking to improve mental health interventions for youth
Hanneke Scholten - 15-01-2019A new paper by Hanneke Scholten and Isabela Granic is out, published by the Journal of Medical Internet Research! Find 'Use of the Principles of Design Thinking to Address Limitations of Digital Mental Health Interventions for Youth: Viewpoint' here or read about it here.
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top update
Hot off the press: a paper about the use of design thinking to improve mental health interventions for youth
Hanneke Scholten - 15-01-2019A new paper by Hanneke Scholten and Isabela Granic is out, published by the Journal of Medical Internet Research! Find 'Use of the Principles of Design Thinking to Address Limitations of Digital Mental Health Interventions for Youth: Viewpoint' here or read about it here.
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top update
GEMH lab featured in Het Jeugdjournaal
Hanneke Scholten - 26-11-2018Last Friday GEMH lab was featured in Het Jeugdjournaal to explain why games can help children to overcome their problems, such as anxiety. Het Jeugdjournaal is a Dutch news show that aims to educate children about worldwide and national news.
-
top update
Hot off the press: a paper about the use of design thinking to improve mental health interventions for youth
Hanneke Scholten - 15-01-2019A new paper by Hanneke Scholten and Isabela Granic is out, published by the Journal of Medical Internet Research! Find 'Use of the Principles of Design Thinking to Address Limitations of Digital Mental Health Interventions for Youth: Viewpoint' here or read about it here.
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DEEP research featured in short TV-item about applied games
Joanneke Weerdmeester - 22-08-2017Joanneke Weerdmeester's PhD research on DEEP was featured in a short item on regional TV (with subtitles)
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DEEP featured on RTL Z
Joanneke Weerdmeester - 07-07-2017RTL Z shortly stopped by our booth at INDIGO where we were showing DEEP, which resulted in a brief feature on the Dutch news of 17:30 on July 6th, 2017
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DEEP selected for INDIGO 2017 showcase
Joanneke Weerdmeester - 02-06-2017GEMH-lab will be at INDIGO 2017 to showcase the amazing VR game DEEP, so come and say hi!
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Can biofeedback games help you regulate your emotions?
Joanneke Weerdmeester - 23-04-2018In this blog we explore the potential of video games that respond to signals from the player's body, i.e. biofeedback games. Specifically, we discuss whether they can help people to become more aware of their body and to effectively regulate their emotions.
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My Talk at RE:Publica
Isabela Granic - 26-05-2016Here’s a 30-min run-through of some of our research that is most exciting me these days.
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DEEP Diving into Virtual Reality
Isabela Granic - 04-06-2016Imagine you could snap your fingers and immediately be transported to a beautiful, serene world that responds to your stress with soothing resonance.
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Interview with GEMH Lab Researcher Elke Schoneveld About Applied Game MindLight
Elke Schoneveld - 04-04-2017Interview with GEMH-lab researcher Elke Schoneveld about applied game MindLight
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Why video games can do better than therapy for anxiety and depression
Isabela Granic - 27-06-2017A summary of the research-backed rationale for using games for the prevention and treatment of anxiety and depression in youth.
-
Can biofeedback games help you regulate your emotions?
Joanneke Weerdmeester - 23-04-2018In this blog we explore the potential of video games that respond to signals from the player's body, i.e. biofeedback games. Specifically, we discuss whether they can help people to become more aware of their body and to effectively regulate their emotions.
-
Do It Yourself: Dealing with depression and anxiety
Marlou Poppelaars - 04-05-2018Everyone has moments when they feel sad, lonely, numb, exhausted, depressed, nervous or anxious. This is a normal part of the ups and downs of life and most people will experience one or more periods in their lives, when they have a diagnosable depression or anxiety disorder. But even if things are not quite that bad, you may still want to do something to help yourself feel better!
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Faces of DEEP
Adam Lobel - 31-10-2015Just a collection of shots I took of people playing DEEP.
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DEEP De-Briefing: Lessons for Collecting Data out in the Field
Adam Lobel - 31-10-2015Last week, my colleague Marieke van Rooij and myself ran and managed a study in the midst of Cinekid’s Medialab. This project turned out to be more ambitious than we had anticipated, but I think we pulled it off quite well. That said, I think a moment of reflection is warranted to go over all the choices and good fortune which facilitated our project’s success. All the materials mentioned here are available for download.
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Poster Prize for GEMH Lab Researcher Aniek Wols
Aniek Wols - 07-04-2017At the placebo conference in Leiden, Aniek Wols took second place with her poster on specific and nonspecific factors in game-based intervention outcomes.
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DEEP research featured in short TV-item about applied games
Joanneke Weerdmeester - 22-08-2017Joanneke Weerdmeester's PhD research on DEEP was featured in a short item on regional TV (with subtitles)
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What's our "Why"?
Isabela Granic - 02-06-2017If the GEMH lab is going to be successful in its mission to deliver a radically new form of mental health interventions for youth, we need to have a very clear purpose, to start with our WHY and design and test games that fit with our WHY...
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GEMH Game Lounge
GEMH Lab - 30-10-2017The GEMH Game Lounge is open for students at Radboud University, every day between 12.30-13.30h. Students can relax by playing from a variety of video games including but not limited to VR, Playstation and mobile app games that relieve stress and anxiety. Click here to see what games are available this month!
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GEMH Summer Writing Week in France
Aniek Wols - 26-07-2017This week, the GEMH Lab is in Normandy, France, for another edition of a productive and inspiring writing week.
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Social media and young people’s mental health and wellbeing
Marieke van Rooij - 24-05-2017Report by the RSPH about the relationship between social media and young people’s mental health and wellbeing: https://www.rsph.org.uk/our-work/policy/social-media-and-young-people-s-mental-health-and-wellbeing.html
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DEEP featured on RTL Z
Joanneke Weerdmeester - 07-07-2017RTL Z shortly stopped by our booth at INDIGO where we were showing DEEP, which resulted in a brief feature on the Dutch news of 17:30 on July 6th, 2017
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Classic TED-talk worth watching
Marieke van Rooij - 08-09-2017Do schools kill our kids' creativity?
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DEEP selected for INDIGO 2017 showcase
Joanneke Weerdmeester - 02-06-2017GEMH-lab will be at INDIGO 2017 to showcase the amazing VR game DEEP, so come and say hi!
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Theme Month November - Kindness and Prosociality: The Brain and Beyond
Nastasia Griffioen - 01-11-2017November is upon us, and so is this month's theme: kindness and prosociality, centered around World Kindness Day taking place on November 13th. The coming two months will form a diptych about social relationships, with November addressing their bright side - kindness and prosociality, and December addressing loneliness, when social relationships are lacking.
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November Game Day: Examining Social Support in Guild Wars 2
Ken Koontz - 09-11-2017In the first installment of our bi-monthly Game Day we explore if we can make a player engage challenging situations confident that other players would help them personally. We chose the MMORPG Guild Wars 2 to examine how its unique combat system, map exploration and character progression could create a context for the player to experience personalized social support.
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The Social Brain and Its Importance
Nastasia Griffioen - 13-11-2017Today is World Kindness Day, an international observance dedicated to promoting kindness, understanding and helping among people. To illustrate the importance of kindness and prosociality, I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you something about the 'social brain hypothesis', a theory that posits that social needs are even more essential to human beings than any other physical need, and that our brains reflect this.
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Let's Play with GEMH - Overcooked!
Nastasia Griffioen - 30-11-2017As the end of this month approaches and a new theme finds its way to our lab, we have decided to celebrate this month's theme - prosociality and kindness - with a Let's Play! In this edition, Anouk, Babet and myself have played a fun yet chaotic cooking game called Overcooked!, in which we venture to conquer the kitchen in our quest to beat the giant meat ball boss.
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Social media and loneliness
Nastasia Griffioen - 28-12-2017Social media have been growing in popularity for years now. As the name implies, the activity is supposed to be social, bringing individuals together and promoting feelings of belonging. However, first glances can be deceiving, and social media have increasingly been associated with another phenomenon taking our 21st century society by storm: loneliness.
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Student life: Having lots of fun? Loneliness in university students
Maaike Verhagen - 19-12-2017Student life is regularly considered as one of the best periods in your life. It usually takes place in vivid and dynamic environments, with lots of opportunities to connect to others, to hang out on the campus or in bars, to play sports together, to go on cultural outings, to exchange ideas, opinions and so on. This provides students with various opportunities for making friends. In fact, one never has to be alone and one could suppose that there is no reason for students to feel lonely. However, that is not what a recent survey on our Radboud campus tells us… One out of four students feels lonely!
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Game Experiences for Better Mental Well-Being
Ken Koontz - 09-03-2018GEMH Lab recommends games available that can have a positive impact on mental and emotional well-being.
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Theme Month April - Listen to your body
Joanneke Weerdmeester - 03-04-2018This month we focus on the connection between mind and body and we will discuss whether video games can help us listen to our body and practice techniques that change our body activity in a way that makes us feel better.
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Breathing exercises that can help you relax
Joanneke Weerdmeester - 03-04-2018Sometimes it's important to press pause, take a deep breath and relax. Here is a simple breathing exercise that you can use to calm yourself down.
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Emotions: At the crossroads of mind and body
Nastasia Griffioen - 19-04-2018The relationship between our bodies and our minds is incredibly complex, and one of the most profound examples of this interaction may very well be the phenomenon of emotions. In keeping with this month's theme - Listen to Your Body - we will take a short trip down Emotion Lane and shed a little bit of light on what emotions are and how they may arise.
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What Computers Can Teach Us About Ourselves
Jan Brammer - 24-04-2018Affective computing systems provide our machines access to our emotions. This might sound unsettling at first, but I argue that we can use affective computing in biofeedback games to gain insights about our emotions that would be hard to come by otherwise.
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Theme Month May – Can you help me?
Marlou Poppelaars - 03-05-2018No matter how natural receiving help can be, asking for help can be difficult. This month, in honour of Mental Health Awareness Month , we will focus on help-seeking for anxiety and depression and we will discuss different types of help, different ways you can find help and things you can do to help yourself.
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Dark Souls: A reflection of depression and a way to cope?
Marlou Poppelaars - 18-05-2018Dark Souls is a video game series often described as dark and incredibly difficult. Honestly, one of the last games I would have considered as beneficial for those dealing with depression. My first impression may very well be wrong though...
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What's the best way to talk about mental health?
Michelle Colder Carras - 21-09-2018There’s a belief that talking about mental illness as a disease (the disease model) reduces stigma and makes it easier for people to get treatment. Others think that the best approach to talking about mental health is to focus on the similarities, thinking of mental health problems as a continuum from the normal “being stressed out” to extreme reactions to stress. There’s no easy solution to this dilemma.
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The Violent Gaming Debate Through the Perspective of Self Determination Theory
Adam Lobel - 17-11-2015I was recently invited to contribute to an article about “10 groundbreaking findings in Psychology and their applicability to (serious) game design”. This is what I had to contribute. 9 others will contribute a discussion of similar length, and we hope to be submitting our work shortly. I’ll keep this blog updated on the paper’s status.
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What is the worst thing you’ve done in a video game?
Babet Halberstadt - 04-05-2017Games provide a very interesting avenue to explore morality. After all, you are not hurting any real people when you allow yourself to misbehave within games. I’m sure we’ve all done things in game worlds that we are not proud of, just to see what happens. In this way, games can provide us with an idea of the consequences of certain actions, and provide an opportunity to test how those actions affect us emotionally.
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An Introduction to the Wide World of Gaming
Adam Lobel - 26-04-2016We have witnessed nothing less than a cultural genesis in the rise of video games. Over the last twenty to thirty years, gaming has gone from fringe to mainstream entertainment. As an industry, it now rivals Hollywood in budgets and revenue, and like Hollywood, it commands a large, diverse audience. In its evolution, gaming has created cultural icons, spawned social controversies, become heralded as an art form, and created diverse cultures of gamers. This post is my attempt to concisely and objectively get people up to speed on what the wide world of video gaming looks like.
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Interview: Benefits of Playing Video Games
Isabela Granic - 21-02-2017Check out the interview I did on an awesome Dutch documentary series, Doc Talks.
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Games to Teach Youth How to Recognize Symptoms of Depression
Anouk Tuijnman - 23-12-2016Web article about new game to increase mental health literacy and decrease stigma for depression in youth.
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Poster Prize for GEMH Lab Researcher Aniek Wols
Aniek Wols - 07-04-2017At the placebo conference in Leiden, Aniek Wols took second place with her poster on specific and nonspecific factors in game-based intervention outcomes.
-
Why video games can do better than therapy for anxiety and depression
Isabela Granic - 27-06-2017A summary of the research-backed rationale for using games for the prevention and treatment of anxiety and depression in youth.
-
Do It Yourself: Dealing with depression and anxiety
Marlou Poppelaars - 04-05-2018Everyone has moments when they feel sad, lonely, numb, exhausted, depressed, nervous or anxious. This is a normal part of the ups and downs of life and most people will experience one or more periods in their lives, when they have a diagnosable depression or anxiety disorder. But even if things are not quite that bad, you may still want to do something to help yourself feel better!
-
Play is evolutionarily and developmentally important
Isabela Granic - 26-09-2017The study of the benefits of playing video games may be relatively new, but the positive function of play more generally has been an important field of study for a long time in developmental psychology.
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GEMH-Lab Plays #2: Bully: Scholarship Edition
Babet Halberstadt - 19-09-2017September 18-22 is the Dutch national week against bullying, so for our second Let's Play we're playing an oldie but a goodie: 'Bully: Scholarship Edition'.
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DEEP research featured in short TV-item about applied games
Joanneke Weerdmeester - 22-08-2017Joanneke Weerdmeester's PhD research on DEEP was featured in a short item on regional TV (with subtitles)
-
Top 3 Most Popular Video Games of Children
Elke Schoneveld - 02-06-2017What are the top 3 most popular video games of children (8 to 12-year-olds)?
-
DEEP featured on RTL Z
Joanneke Weerdmeester - 07-07-2017RTL Z shortly stopped by our booth at INDIGO where we were showing DEEP, which resulted in a brief feature on the Dutch news of 17:30 on July 6th, 2017
-
DEEP selected for INDIGO 2017 showcase
Joanneke Weerdmeester - 02-06-2017GEMH-lab will be at INDIGO 2017 to showcase the amazing VR game DEEP, so come and say hi!
-
GEMH Game Lounge
GEMH Lab - 30-10-2017The GEMH Game Lounge is open for students at Radboud University, every day between 12.30-13.30h. Students can relax by playing from a variety of video games including but not limited to VR, Playstation and mobile app games that relieve stress and anxiety. Click here to see what games are available this month!
-
Let's Play with GEMH - Overcooked!
Nastasia Griffioen - 30-11-2017As the end of this month approaches and a new theme finds its way to our lab, we have decided to celebrate this month's theme - prosociality and kindness - with a Let's Play! In this edition, Anouk, Babet and myself have played a fun yet chaotic cooking game called Overcooked!, in which we venture to conquer the kitchen in our quest to beat the giant meat ball boss.
-
November Game Day: Examining Social Support in Guild Wars 2
Ken Koontz - 09-11-2017In the first installment of our bi-monthly Game Day we explore if we can make a player engage challenging situations confident that other players would help them personally. We chose the MMORPG Guild Wars 2 to examine how its unique combat system, map exploration and character progression could create a context for the player to experience personalized social support.
-
Toxicity and prosociality in online games
Geert Verheijen - 23-11-2017The majority of popular video games nowadays allow (or even require) multiple players to join in at the same time. More than ever before, gamers are being dropped in virtual worlds together with their friends, family, but also total strangers. What kind of effect does this have on our social behavior?
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Moving Stories featured in "NOS op 3 Tech Podcast" (in Dutch)
Anouk Tuijnman - 04-01-2018Anouk Tuijnman talked about Moving Stories on the NOS op 3 Tech Podcast (in Dutch).
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Theme Month March - Gaming by Campfire
Ken Koontz - 09-03-2018Every March, to coincide with the Game Developers conference and many other major gaming news & updates, we felt now would be a great opportunity to take a look at some of the games available that can have a positive impact on mental and emotional well-being. Games that you can relax to but still be immersed in a non casual way.
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Theme Month April - Listen to your body
Joanneke Weerdmeester - 03-04-2018This month we focus on the connection between mind and body and we will discuss whether video games can help us listen to our body and practice techniques that change our body activity in a way that makes us feel better.
-
Game Experiences for Better Mental Well-Being
Ken Koontz - 09-03-2018GEMH Lab recommends games available that can have a positive impact on mental and emotional well-being.
-
The Most Meaningful Waste of a Month
Ken Koontz - 19-03-2018The condition "Gaming Disorder" describes a pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behavior so severe that it takes "precedence over other life interests". But is it the game design that is addicting or the emotional connections to an online social network made while playing the game?
-
Dark Souls: A reflection of depression and a way to cope?
Marlou Poppelaars - 18-05-2018Dark Souls is a video game series often described as dark and incredibly difficult. Honestly, one of the last games I would have considered as beneficial for those dealing with depression. My first impression may very well be wrong though...
-
What's the best way to talk about mental health?
Michelle Colder Carras - 21-09-2018There’s a belief that talking about mental illness as a disease (the disease model) reduces stigma and makes it easier for people to get treatment. Others think that the best approach to talking about mental health is to focus on the similarities, thinking of mental health problems as a continuum from the normal “being stressed out” to extreme reactions to stress. There’s no easy solution to this dilemma.
made by
Owen Harris & Niki Smit
Owen Harris is a game designer, teacher and human. When not working on DEEP, he teaches people how to make games in the Dublin Institute of Technology.
Niki Smit is co-founder of Monobanda PLAY, a Utrecht based game company that develops playful interactive experiences. He is a game designer and artist.