Chill Room: Pocket Edition

Chill Room: Pocket Edition is a mobile app for iOS and Android built in partnership with Allegheny Health Network’s Chill Project. The mission of the project is to equip middle school students with the tools they need to navigate their emotions and strengthen their ability to identify, discuss, and react to stress with resilience.

Recognizing that access to traditional “Chill Rooms” and similar stress management programs in schools is not always available, the team designed a mobile app that brings some of a Chill Room’s essential support resources directly to students. The goal was to offer consistent access to strategies for managing stress, identifying feelings, and fostering self-awareness.

Consulting with subject matter experts, the team built the app to focus on foundational emotional awareness skills. Players begin by checking in with their character’s village and start gathering resources. Along the way, they’re asked to observe and reflect on the emotional state of other villagers in the game. Through dialogue with the villagers, players are introduced to concepts such as naming and recognizing the feel of six basic emotions. Players must then apply that knowledge to help a villager. Certain dialogues in the game also trigger deep breathing exercises aimed at allowing players to practice self-regulation skills.

The focus of phase one of the project was building a functional, research-ready prototype that showcases the core gameplay loop and supports the game’s transformational goals. This phase involved a playable demo and comprehensive design and technical documentation. 

Future directions for the project include continuing to validate its effectiveness as a tool for emotional well-being and building on the prototype to expand its content into a full game.

Platform
Mobile

Researchers
Lead Designer: Elaine Fath
Project Lead: Megan Guidi
Project Manager: Jessica Kaminsky
Technical Lead: Scott King

Student Team: Mahima Batheja, Haino Chen, Erica Principe Cruz, Catherine Dundon, Nina Gamboni, Yuyang (Jessie) Geng, Noor Hammad, Christian Johnson, Zidi Lin, Deeptika Mandha, Oluwafisayomi Oyolola, Dario Quintero, Jeffery Wang, Poorva Wange, Storm Wright, Morgan Zhang

Research Areas:
Games for Mental Health and Well-being
Idle Games
Games for Education

Concept Art 
Nina Gamboni, Sonya He, Deeptika Mandha, Jeffery Wang

Game Website:
ctp.cs.cmu.edu/ahn