Pathways

Card game to help children tackle automatic negative thoughts

Negative self beliefs can be a significant hindrance to growth and potential achievement. The project delves deep into the origins of such beliefs and specifically cognitive distortions. Cognitive distortions, specifically automatic negative thoughts become a lot more concerning when its seen in young children who often lack the reflective capacity to limit these beliefs or thoughts. To address this, I developed a storytelling game called ‘Pathways’.

Pathways is a card game that relies on semi-structured story telling. It is set in content relatable to children and requires the players to adopt a more flexible mindset—from ‘This is bad’ to ‘I can choose to look at it differently’.

Initial qualitative tests with children showed strong potential and preliminary evaluation with CATS N/P questionnaire also shows promise. Although it is only tested after short term exposure (1-2 hrs of playing) to the game. Studying longer term exposure is necessary to conclude anything reliably.

Additionally, the game has been streamlined for commercial viability on the side to reach a wider audience and will be available on Kickstarter by the end of December.

Mehta, S., & Upadhyay, P. (2023). Design and Development of 'Pathways': A Card Game to Help Children Tackle Automatic Negative Thoughts. Manuscript under review.

The project started as my undergraduate thesis under the supervision of Dr. Pankaj Upadhyay in the Sustainable Social Innovation Lab at the Indian Institute of Guwahati.

The game, although first designed for children, also became really popular with adults. Below are pictures of some of the playtests with different groups over the country. Playtesting with adults usually led to very productive feedback about game mechanics whereas playtesting with children usually validated the changes and the initial hypothesis.

The game evolved through multiple iterations (fifteen to be exact). It started off as a game with mechanics similar to minesweeper and through iterations, slowly involved storytelling aspects. The final game mechanics now run smoothly and allow for a ton of fun.

Below are some pictures of the game at different stages of design.