Ken Koontzonline
Creative Director of GEMH LabShort bio
GEEK, Game designer, artist, producer, anime and video game enthusiast, American football player, and as of recently a newb gardener. I'm pretty much always down for new ventures and experiences - O' ley do it!
Top-3 games
- Dota: Underlords
- Warframe
- Ark: Survival Evolved
“The ability to perceive or think differently is more important than the knowledge gained.”
David Bohm
About me
My background in architecture from Florida A&M University and my own all-consuming passion for media arts (movies, books, comics, anime, TV, etc.) lead me to joining the video game industry in 2007 as an Environmental Artist for Rainbow Studios | THQ. I went from creating game art assets to designing level encounters, learning the importance of lateral thinking, and generalization over specialization. I had to be a jack-of-all-trades and find solutions within immovable constraints.
Moving into the world of applied gaming, I joined the Games for Emotional and Mental Health Lab (GEMH Lab) in 2015. Over the years here, I have substantially grown both emotionally as well as professionally and now approach design/development with an inclusive perspective. I gather valuable input from stakeholders, subject matter experts across disciplines, and of course the end user.
A constant iterative process of: Build - Play - Learn - Repeat
As owner of Koontz Interactive, I now seek to work with enthusiasts of any discipline that want to harness the power of play to achieve a positive behavioral change.
Projects I’ve worked on
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CategoryAnxiety | DepressionDate05/10/2022Study/CourseLocation
Social Games as Prevention Tools for Depression in Adolescents
About the projectIn my PhD project I study social games for the prevention of depression. In my project I take part in both the development and testing of games. I want to use video games to help youth become more emotionally resilient and to decrease the stigma that surrounds depression. I do this in close collaboration with other researchers and game designers. I am particularly interested in games that are played in a social context, because I believe that both social threat and social support are key factors in the development and maintenance of depression.
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CategoryResilienceDate05/10/2022Study/CourseLocation
Reducing Stress Through Virtual Social Support
About the projectPeople with large social networks on average live longer, happier, less stressed lives. We can potentially leverage video games and virtual spaces to increase the experience of social support and impact daily stress and anxiety. Therefore, this project aims to show that virtual social support can lower stress, and potentially impact stress coping behaviours.
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CategoryBehavior RegulationDate05/10/2022Study/CourseLocation
Designing and Testing a Game Intervention to Help Youth Quit Smoking
About the projectSmoking is one of the leading public health problems in the world. In the Netherlands today, still 1 in 4 youth between the ages of 16 and 25 smoke. Even more worrisome is that there are almost no evidence-based interventions available to help them quit smoking. That’s why we, in collaboration with scientists, game designers and smoking youth, developed and tested a game to help youth quit smoking. HitnRun is a mobile game in which you can train your impulse control, and in which you collaborate in teams, support each other’s quit attempts, and compete against other teams.
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CategoryResilienceDate24/04/2018Study/CourseLocation
Facing the Challenge Together: a Social Game for Emotional Resilience
About the projectOur research aims to transform young people’s mental health by developing and testing a social game for resiliency when facing stress events. Working in collaboration with the Award winning studio Aardman Animations, we want to harness the important mental health implications of both social support and mindsets, to develop a fun and engaging intervention.
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CategoryBehavior RegulationDate23/04/2018Study/CourseLocation
DUST: Decisions Under Stress Training - A Biofeedback Training in Virtual Reality for police officers
About the projectThe work of a police officer can be seen as an evolutionary paradox: in places and situations where most people would fall prey to survival instincts of self-preservation, police officers ought to act calm, with proportionality and benevolence. This is why police officers need to train control over their responses to threat as much as possible. To enable this, we develop a virtual training environment with real-time biofeedback. We combine virtual reality and biofeedback to create a personalized, realistic training experience, while honing state-of-the-art technology and psychophysical theory.
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CategorySocial MediaDate31/08/2020Study/CourseLocation
XCAVO: Realigning Your Digital Life
About the projectDigital media are designed to serve many different functions: socialising, working, building relationships, as well as playing and being entertained. In this project, we seek to understand the impact of different features of digital media, and help youth align what they value and love with what they do on digital platforms, in order to increase wellbeing and coherent identity development.
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CategoryResilienceDate18/07/2022Study/CourseLocation
Bloombox: A Toolkit for Creating Transformative Tech
About the projectCreating digital tech—whether it be videogames or apps—that makes a real impact on human flourishing is hard! Luckily, at the GEMH Lab we have amassed many lessons learned, tips, tricks and caveats over the years of our existence. All of which we aim to bring together in the Bloombox: a toolkit for creating transformative tech.
Events View all events
My publications
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Developing and Testing ScrollQuest: A Video Game Targeting Rejection Sensitivity in Adolescents
Tuijnman, A., Granic, I., Whitkin, J., & Engels, R. C. M. E. (2017). In CHI PLAY'17 Extended Abstracts: Extended Abstracts Publication of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (pp. 213-221). New York, NY: ACM.
Author: Anouk Tuijnman
Upload date: 10-15-2017
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The Sims: A Social Improvement Mechanism for Adolescents
Lobel, A., Engels, R., Tuijnman, A., de Valk, T., & Granic, I. (2013, April). Poster presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Seattle, WA.
Author: Adam Lobel
Upload date: 04-15-2013
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Mechanisms of Change in a Go/No-Go Training Game for Young Adult Smokers
Scholten, H., Luijten, M., Poppelaars, A., Johnson-Glenberg, M. C., & Granic, I. (2021). Health Psychology, 40(12), 998-1008. https://doi.org/10.1037/hea0001068
Author: Hanneke Scholten
Upload date: 07-01-2021
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A Randomized Controlled Trial to Test the Effectiveness of a Peer-Based Social Mobile Game Intervention to Reduce Smoking in Youth
Scholten, H., Luijten, M., & Granic, I. (2019). Development and Psychopathology, 31, 1923-1943. doi: 10.1017/S0954579419001378
Author: Hanneke Scholten
Upload date: 06-17-2020
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Use of the Principles of Design Thinking to Address Limitations of Digital Mental Health Interventions for Youth: Viewpoint
Scholten, H., & Granic, I. (2019). Journal of Medial Internet Research, 21(1), e11528. doi: 10.2196/11528
Author: Hanneke Scholten
Upload date: 06-16-2020
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Deep-Breathing Biofeedback Trainability in a Virtual-Reality Action Game: A Single-Case Design Study With Police Trainers
Michela, A., van Peer, J. M., Brammer, J. C., Nies, A., van Rooij, M. M. J. W., Oostenveld, R., Dorrestijn, W., Smit, A. S., Roelofs, K., Klumpers, F., & Granic, I. (2022). Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 29. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.806163
Author: Abele Michela
Upload date: 02-10-2022
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Breathing Biofeedback for Police Officers in a Stressful Virtual Environment: Challenges and Opportunities
Brammer, J. C., van Peer, J. M., Michela, A., van Rooij, M. M. J. W., Oostenveld, R., Klumpers, F., Dorrestijn, W., Granic, I., & Roelofs, K. (2021). Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 586553. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.586553
Author: Jan Brammer
Upload date: 03-12-2021
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Reducing the Noise of Reality
Michela, A., van Rooij, M. M. J. W., Klumpers, F., van Peer, J. M. J. M., Roelofs, K., & Granic, I. (2019). Psychological Inquiry, 30(4), 203–210. https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2019.1693872
Author: Abele Michela
Upload date: 01-04-2020
Worked together with
Professor and Chair of the Developmental Psychopathology department in the Behavioural Science Institute; writer; voracious podcast consumer; mother of two upstanding little gamers
Professor at McMaster's University
Researcher, interdisciplinary work and collaboration, wants to understand the how's and why's, loves her high heels and coffee in the morning, walks and talks too fast.
Assistant Professor at University of Twente
Researcher, psychologist, PhD-candidate, gamer, dungeon master, language enthusiast and lover of all things geeky.
Self-Employed Consultant
Game developer, VR-guru, mocap artist, animator, video editor and all-round problem solver. Avid gamer, movie lover and dabbling photographer.
Technical Support Group Specialist
I work with clients to design ecosystems, adapt bleeding edge research and develop end-to-end strategies that help improve the lives of their patients, practitioners and users.
Staff Vice President, Design and UX at Anthem, Inc.
Assistant Professor within the Developmental Psychopathology group of the Behavioural Science Institute
Assistant Professor
I am a passionate researcher interested in improving the well-being of young people with the use of innovative interventions.
PhD-Candidate
Assistant prof. and data geek at the GEMH lab, dynamical modelling, personalisation, wants to put the I back into AI, news junkie, cat lover.
Assistant Professor
Maartje Luijten
Assistant Professor
Wil Cunningham
William Cunningham is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto and holds a cross appointment in the Marketing Area at the Rotman School. Research and Teaching interests in: Affective Science, Social Cognition, Neuroscience, Attitude and Evaluation
Associate Professor, University of Toronto