Always Good Vibes

Emotion status
Ping Pong Thoughts Minigame
Vibe Slicer

Inspiration

We were inspired by the rising mental health challenges among students and young adults, and the lack of accessible tools that make emotional awareness feel engaging. Our goal was to make mental health check-ins feel as easy and enjoyable as playing a casual game. We wanted to combine fast gameplay with meaningful emotional interaction—without being too serious or clinical.

What it does

Always Good Vibes is a mental wellness game that features two quick, engaging mini-games:

Ping Pong Thoughts: A chatbot-style game where players engage in emotional conversations with a customizable AI buddy. Each thoughtful response increases a Friendship Meter, promoting self-reflection and empathy.

Vibe Slicer: A reflex-based game where emotion emojis fly across the screen. Players slice or avoid them based on their emotional value (happy = +5, anxious = –5, sad = –3, angry = –10). At the end, players receive personalized feedback based on their score.

Both games aim to build emotional intelligence through lightweight, repeatable play.

How we built it

Using the Unity game engine, we organized game logic using Object-Oriented Design, enabling modularity and scalability across both mini-games. For interactive and dynamic feedback, we integrated a Python Flask API connected to LLMs (Large Language Models). This setup allowed real-time emotional response evaluation and personalized content delivery from the AI chatbot and feedback system.

Challenges we ran into

Crafting emotionally relevant AI responses without sounding robotic or repetitive

Balancing game mechanics to keep both fun and purpose aligned

Determining the proper difficulty that is challenging whilst not too difficult.

Ensuring gameplay remained light while still encouraging emotional engagement

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Built and connected two distinct, working mini-games that support mental health through active gameplay

Successfully implemented LLM-powered AI feedback for personalized player interaction

Made emotional awareness feel intuitive and accessible through game design

Created an experience that people enjoyed and found meaningful, even in early testing

What we learned

We learned that AI can be a powerful ally in emotional gameplay, providing thoughtful, real-time responses and feedback. Unity's structure made it easy to manage multiple game states, and integrating with Flask gave us flexibility for dynamic backend logic. Most importantly, we learned that simple games can spark self-awareness if designed with empathy and clarity.