Serious gaming: archery for relaxation

“Mindfulness is actually supposed to be a bit boring,” admits master’s student Waded Oudhuis. “It was quite a challenge to design a game that helps people develop mindful habits in a fun way.” Oudhuis developed ‘Breath of the Bow’ with a team of six fellow students. As a user, you play an archer who must hit the bullseye by breathing calmly. The idea behind it is that it helps you cultivate a mindful breathing habit.

There’s something contradictory about that: surely with mindfulness, you’re supposed to put your phone away? “Quite ironic,” says lecturer Rafa Bidarra (Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science). “And on top of that, it’s a first-person shooter game for mindfulness.” The lecturer for the master’s course Building Serious Games was surprised by this design as a solution for a mindfulness game. “And yet it works.”

No experience with archery

How did the students come up with this idea? “Through lots of brainstorming. None of us has any experience with archery,” laughs Oudhuis. “But in films, an archer always has to breathe very calmly and then release the arrow. That’s the feeling we want to give people; that’s how it came about.”

The team built the game in nine weeks. Everyone had their own role, from design to implementation. “For example, we built in features to ensure people want to keep playing – that’s what you call ‘retention’,” explains Oudhuis. “The most important thing is that the environment changes in every level. For instance, in seven days you go from morning to night, and in four weeks you cycle through the seasons.” “It’s brilliant to see how a group of students can produce such a final product,” says Bidarra.

Ultimately, the students also wanted to test the game. Bidarra: “The aim was to get users to play for 28 days so they’d have time to really make mindful breathing a habit.” The responses from the questionnaires the students had people fill in were positive. “People felt more focused, calmer and less stressed,” says Oudhuis. “What’s more, over time they found it increasingly easier to focus on their breathing.”

‘Breathing calmly is really something I’ve developed’

Has Oudhuis herself become more mindful? “I do pay more attention to it. Especially at the start, I noticed how slowly you actually breathe with a good breathing pattern: four seconds in, four seconds holding, and four seconds out. Breathing calmly is really something I’ve developed.”

Incidentally, Oudhuis was unable to test the game herself on her own phone. Due to the high fees Apple charges for publication in the App Store, the game is currently only available for Android.

For anyone with an Android who could do with a bit of peace and quiet in these hectic times, the game Breath of the Bow is available to download here. iPhone users may simply have to put their phones away instead.