A Co-Design Protocol for a Serious Game Supporting Emotion Regulation in Children

This document presents a protocol for developing a serious game (SG) that aims to build emotional knowledge and emotion regulation (ER) skills in school-aged children, specifically those aged 6 to 9. Its central thesis is that a co-design methodology, in which children, parents, teachers, and healthcare professionals contribute as equal partners throughout development, can produce a digital intervention that is more relevant, engaging, and effective than tools designed by researchers alone. The authors position the work against existing games such as ReThink and Emodiscovery, which they note either embed ER within broader socio-emotional learning or target older children and were created without stakeholder input.

The proposed game is a multiplatform narrative experience in which players identify emotions and choose between adaptive and maladaptive regulation strategies within realistic emotional situations. Its design draws on Gross's Process Model of ER and Ekman's framework of basic and complex emotions. The protocol unfolds in three co-design phases: semi-structured interviews and creative sessions for conceptual design, prototype testing through open-ended questionnaires and in-play feedback, and a usability evaluation involving at least 25 participants who take the game home for a week of play. Children are recruited from both school and clinical settings, with diagnosed developmental or psychiatric disorders excluded because the intervention is framed as prevention and psychoeducation.

Data collection combines semi-structured interviews, open-ended questionnaires, self-report and hetero-report instruments such as the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, the System Usability Scale, and the User Satisfaction Evaluation Questionnaire, along with observations and gameplay metrics. Outcomes are assessed through pre- and post-play parental reports of children's emotional skills. The authors describe the work as a protocol rather than a completed study, so no empirical results are reported; expected outcomes include enjoyable, educationally effective gameplay and observable transfer of strategies to real-world situations.