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

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

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

Project Outcome

We finalized the first and second phase and now we are preparing to conduct a Pilot Study to assess the system usability.