"My Lockdown Escape": A Data Collection Approach based on Gamification and Crowdsourcing for Subjective Perspectives, Self-Empathy, and Memories about Past Experiences

In this article, we propose a hybrid, gamified, story-driven data collection approach to spark self-empathy, resurfacing people's perceptions and feelings about past experiences. The game is designed around the well-known paradigm of an escape room and includes a physical board, some card decks, and a mobile application. We designed our concept around a very impactful experience that most people have experienced in recent years, namely the COVID-19 pandemic. The game aims to collect and understand people's behaviour and feelings and to study and tackle the long-term effects of the pandemic. As the player plays through the game, they customize and escape from their lockdown room by completing statements and answering a series of questions that define their story. The decoration of the lockdown room and the storytelling-driven approach are targeted at sparking people's emotions and self-empathy towards their past selves. Ultimately, the proposed approach was proven effective in collecting data about perceptions, opinions, and feelings related to the event.