About the designer
Serena Fadlun is a game designer with a background in Psychology. Despite having to abandon her first career in psychological research due to a cross-continental move, she never gave up on her passion for Happiness. While working as a game designer, she attended Yale University's Science of Well-Being Course and she became a Certified Happiness Coach. She finally decided to merge her two loves (tabletop games and happiness) to create the first game that is scientifically proven to make people happier.
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Happy Haven™ was designed based on the PERMA® model by Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology.
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It was one of three games that were playtested in the initial stages of the experiment, and the most promising of the three according to preliminary qualitative research.
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The five main components of the PERMA® model are the main factors behind the five categories in Happy Haven™. Each category in the game is designed to develop one of the five happiness-inducing factors: Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Achievement.
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There were 62 test subjects. 34 people participated in person, while 28 participated via email.
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The PANAS (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule) was used to measure players' happiness before and after playing the game.
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The results were analysed using a paired sample t-test, which showed a significant improvement in players' happiness after playing the game.
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Happy Haven™ is scientifically proven to make people happier!
About the study
What's Next?
Right now, we know that Happy Haven™ makes people happier. But the work isn't over! I will conduct more studies to compare it to other games (do all games make people happier?), to explore the long term effects and to create versions for children and couples. Then, I will create more games that are scientifically proven to make people happier!