Break Free
An experimental art game.
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Break Free challenges players to break out of their shell and forge a healthier, happier lifestyle.
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The goal of this text based adventure is to go out into the real world and try new things, set new habits, build relationships, join communities, and discover what makes you happy.
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Research
The Data
How happy are you, on a scale of 1-10?
Survey respondents begin by rating their happiness on a scale of one to ten.
Everyone fell somewhere in the middle, with the most common rating being a 6- not in the bottom half, but still low.
What do we need?
My goal was to create a game that helps people.
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I knew I wanted this game to prompt players to get out of the house and make real life changes. I also knew I wanted this game to push people to do the work they need to do to be happy. Yet every person has different things they need to feel fulfilled - and how does a random third party (me) determine what will help a majority of people?
I started by asking them. I surveyed anyone I could get, and had them anonymously answer a variety of short answer questions about how they spend their time, and what makes them feel happy. Short answers helped provide ideas for specific tasks that could be asked of players and allowed respondents to answer earnestly.
I got a lot of responses. Reoccuring themes included friends & family, arts & entertainment, travel, and self acceptance.
Happiness and Fulfilment
What makes you happy?
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When asked what makes them happy, survey participants cited time with family, friends, and other socializing the most often. Next up was traveling and enjoying nature, with activities/arts/entertainment and accomplishments close behind.
Clearly, other people are important to us. Even when they weren't explicitly mentioned, they're still a large factor. Accomplishments and arts/entertainment are both driven by social dictates and human emotion. Travel and nature are frequently enjoyed with others as well, and many of the answers which named travel and time outdoors implied having company for these activities.
What do you feel the need to do in order to have lived a full life?
Again, family, friends, and social interaction are the most frequently mentioned necessities for living life to its fullest. These answers were more varied than the responses to what makes you happy, but the same major themes were repeated; society, accomplishments, travel/nature, emotional wellbeing, and basic needs.
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Responses to this question were more difficult to categorize as well, and harder to sift motivations from. While the breakdown of comments did provide some clear broad strokes, the individual answers could be taken many ways. For example: if a responder wants more time, is this because they spend too much time on things they don't enjoy, because they enjoy too many things to do them all, or because they lack time management skills? Or perhaps they're nearing death and simply can't live out the life they planned. The former is manageable; the later can't be helped.
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What memory brings you the most joy?
75% of responses mentioned friends and family, even if their answer fell into a different category.
Joy from the past was also dominated by friends and family. Most memories were primarily about time with others. Other memories included travel/nature, arts/entertainment, accomplishments, and people's childhoods. Many of these other memories explicitly mentioned friends and family, and the ones that did not were still mostly events that are typically attended in groups or shared with loved ones.
Habits and Activites
What single behavior or activity of yours would you struggle to give up the most?
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Arts and Entertainment took a large slice of the pie at 30%. Physical activities & exercise tied with and addictive substances & self harm for the next most popular item. Social activities are also significant.
These are all endorphin releasing activities.
Name one thing you've always wanted to do, but never have.
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When it came to dreams and ambitions, activities were much less physical. The majority wanted to travel, and not far below it was a large group of people who wanted to complete similarly exciting activities or accomplishments, like scuba diving, being on TV, or sky diving.
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A notable amount of people wanted to ride in a hot air balloon.
What do you do when you're bored?
Arts and Entertainment are king again when deciding how to occupy oneself when unoccupied. The remaining half of the pie sees social and physical activities neck in neck above mental activities (primarily thinking) and work.
What good habit have you kept up consistently, and what's your advice for keeping up a good habit?
What bad habit have you broken, and how?
Answers to these questions varied so much they were difficult to categorize, but proved helpful later on when writing specific tasks for the game.
Strategies for making and breaking habits varied significantly from task to task, but frequently boiled down to mental tricks, practical advice, and consistency.
Exploring Relationships
Who is the most important person in your life, and why?
Spouses and partners got the title of most important person for the majority of responders, but parents (primarily Mom) weren't far behind. Children and Grandparents didn't lag far behind, with self and friends finishing with a minority. Interestingly. siblings were not mentioned, despite the larger theme of family members making up 93.9% of the results.
When it came down to why these people were so important, the support they provided made up nearly half of the answers. The next reason was simply time spent together- relationships that had been around longer have more value to many people.
Participants also frequently cited feeling like they belong, are understood, or have a purpose because of the most important person in their life.
What do you do that makes you feel valued?
80% of responses to this question talked about other people. The majority of those responses were about helping others; friends, family, and strangers. Of the remaining 20% or responses, half stated they do not feel valued.
What do you do to contribute to your community. Why?
Naturally responses to this question were incredibly varied as well, including volunteer work, donations, and generally being helpful to other people.
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It was impressive that nearly every respondent had an answer. Only about 10% of responses said they do not contribute. Coincedently, this is the same amount of people who stated they do not feel valued, and the same amount of people who ranked their happiness below a 5.
Data Map
I sketched my data out to take a look at how everything is connected. Unsurprisingly, it wove a complex web centered around social and physical needs.
External Research
Since Break Free would need to rely heavily on influencing players to do what they're told without any way to enforce it, I turned to some already well fleshed out techniques for compliance. I found four I thought could be potentially helpful:
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The "Door-in-the-Face" Technique
This approach starts by asking for a large commitment. When the other person refuses, they then make a smaller and more reasonable request. After declining one request, one might feel compelled to comply with the second appeal.
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The "Foot-in-the-Door" Technique
In this approach, you start by asking for and obtaining a small commitment. Once a person has complied with the first request, they are more likely to also comply with a second, larger request.
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Ingratiation
This approach involves gaining approval from someone in order to gain compliance. Strategies such as flattering them or presenting oneself in a way that appeals to the individual are often used in this approach.
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Reciprocity
People are more likely to comply if they feel that the other person has already done something for them. We have been socialized to believe that if people extend kindness to us, we should return the favor. Researchers have found that the reciprocity effect is so strong that it can work even when the initial favor is uninvited or comes from someone we do not like.
​Sources:
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APA Dictionary of Psychology. Compliance. American Psychological Association.
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Guéguen N. Door-in-the-face technique and delay to fulfill the final request: An evaluation with a request to give blood. J Psychol. 2014;148(5):569-576. doi:10.1080/00223980.2013.817963
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Guéguen N, Silone F, David M. The effect of the two feet-in-the-door technique on tobacco deprivation. Psychol Health. 2016;31(6):768-775. doi:10.1080/08870446.2016.1154146
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Robertson JC. The effects of ingratiation and client incentive on auditor judgement. Behav Res Account. 2010;22(2):69-86. doi:10.2308/bria.2010.22.2.69
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Malmendier U, te Velde VL, Weber RA. Rethinking reciprocity. Ann Rev Econ. 2014;6:849-874. doi:10.1146/annurev-economics-080213-041312
Building the Game
Narrative Goals
Break Free had two serious constraints - time and money. It only had one significant goal - to make a thought provoking, positive impact on players live's. I set out to create a game that could pack a huge impact while staying relatively simple to produce, and I designed an old school text based adventure with a modern feel and an out of the box twist - real life, outside the game tasks. The in game user journey is a fairly simple chat format, with flow of the app and number of screens being purposefully low in an effort to complete the project quickly and on budget.
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So how do we build a text based adventure game that challenges players to break out of their shell and forge healthier, happier lifestyles?
We prompt players to go out into the real world and try new things, set new habits, build relationships, join communities, and discover what makes them happy.
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The chat based look of the game was designed to make players feel like they're chatting with a real person - a person they don't want to let down. This person instructs them to complete a series of tasks - and that's the game. It works using primarily the foot in the door technique - scaling users up from completing simple to more difficult and impactful real world tasks. Players are led to try new hobbies, get creative, experiment with healthy habits, work on their relationships, and eventually scale up to pursuing more serious goals, honing skills they care about, or joining, creating, and impacting communities. For example, a task early in the game is "Make a paper airplane". Later in the game, tasks are more difficult with potentially higher rewards, like "Join a club or community centered around something you're interested in. Attend meetings/events for this new community for at least a month." As players complete tasks and move through the game, free answer responses are saved in a journal to track their progress.
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After my survey results, it was clear tasks should focus on building players up in several categories:
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Mental and Physical Care
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Social and Community Connection
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Creative and Entertainment
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Travel, Adventure, and Nature
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Career or Academic Advancements
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I also took a look at what tools others found valuable in managing their lives and habits:
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Consistency/Routine
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Knowing Yourself
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Reframing Problems
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Self Confidence
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Setting and Enforcing Boundaries
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I made a list of tasks and questions built to provoke players to work on the aforementioned tools and categories. Tasks are typically direct examples of methods for exercising these parts of one's life. Task's are intended to give players a taste of various activities, either reminding them to keep up with habits they already enjoy or pushing them to try new methods which may work for them to nourish the parts of their lives most conducive to happiness .
User Journey Map
The in game user journey is a fairly simple chat format, so the flow is simple. The out of flow journey is mapped separately for each individual task as part of the writing process.
Wireframes
Wireframes played with different styles for a simple chat with a menu and journal.
Special Challenges: Accessibity
I wanted Break Free to be accessible to as many people as possible, but I understood from the start that certain target demographics would be able to play this game with no problems - and some users wouldn't be able to. Going out and doing real world tasks simply requires a certain degree of resources - disposable income, transportation, and free time.
However, I didn't want to exclude users who had other potential barriers, such as players with:
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Mobility Issues
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Youth/Age Restrictions
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Unstable Living Situations
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Low Income
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Mental Health Issues
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The task script had to take careful consideration of phrasing and contain a diverse enough set of responses to account for a variety of lifestyles. If a task isn't possible for a certain group, the script had to provide options for alternates that serve the same purpose.
Digital Wireframes
Wireframes played with different styles for a simple chat with a menu and journal. I went with an artistic but readable chat design - I wanted the chat to be intriguing and have a distinct personality.
Question Flow
The text makes up the main structure of the game. Players are asked to complete a series of tasks, and are either given a variety of answers to choose from or for specific questions they can type a response to be saved in their journal.
After completing their dialog signifying they've answered the question or task, they move on to the next task - unless they've 'lost' the game. So while the question flow breaks up into multiple conversations and can get somewhat complex, each conversation does eventually converge again on the next task.
Final Mockups
