Smartphone-based Biofeedback Games for Shielding of Immune System against COVID-19: The CovidShield Game Suite design approach

Abstract

Game-based biofeedback applications on smartphone devices can be played anywhere, giving users, at the same time, a tangible and real-time external measure of their behavior/response. The CovidShield Game Suite (CGS) design process approach presented here, as part of the CovidShield project, introduces a holistic interactive approach to shield the human immune system against COVID-19, by targeting optimal control of all the relevant factors, i.e., physical and mental, in an unobtrusive, gamified and user friendly, low-cost way, allowing for personalization and adaptation to each user's physiological and mental profile. From the methodological point of view, to facilitate the visualization of the constructed breathing game-scenarios, the storyboarding technique was adopted. Overall, the realization of the CGS sets the basis for establishing a holistic framework that could improve and/or change the quality of life of the user/player by following the learning process of breathing patterns that the CGS can offer.