The Archive:  A Gamified Narrative Application for Stress Management 

Project Description

Project Motivation: Existing literature identifies college students as a population highly susceptible to elevated levels of stress. These reports reveal a need for accessible and adaptive tools that allow students to explore and practice coping strategies relevant to their unique experiences. Traditional wellness tools often fail to address these challenges in contextually meaningful ways. The Archive directly addresses this gap by offering a choose-your-own-adventure–style narrative experience that allows users to engage with stress management concepts through interactive storytelling.  

Project Goal: The Archive is an interactive, narrative-based application designed to help college students manage stress through immersive, choice-driven storytelling. The system provides a digital mental health alternative by emphasizing narrative enjoyment, game mechanics, and reflective support. 

What we've done

Lead Student: Rowan Stratton

This project has three phases: 

1. Survey to define initial design needs + Market Analysis of existing DMH Gamified apps

2. Focus group to co-design game features and learning directly from students

3. Expert Evaluation + Usability Study to test the game in real-life conditions

Project Outcome

We finalized the survey and market analysis and conducted a focus group to co-design the game elements with students. As a result, we published the following papers in the HCI International Conference and CSCW.

• Reclaiming Play in Digital Mental Health: A Scoping Review of Play-Oriented Gamification for Stress in College Students (2026-07-07) doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-30405-6_14

• When the Story Stalls: Designing Narrative Scaffolds for Eudemonic Reflection (2026-07-07) doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-30405-6_13

• Vantage: Using Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment to Pace Emotional Intensity in Serious Games (2026-07-02) doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-30816-0_34

• Rowan L. Stratton and Jomara Sandbulte. 2026. Stress through Story: Participatory Design for Gamified College Wellness. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 10, 6, Article CSCW158 (October 2026), 36 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3817006 

Currently, we are writing the results from the field study.