Background: Stress has become a widespread phenomenon, and serious games are increasingly recognized as engaging tools for stress relief. However, despite the rapid advancement of Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen-AI), its integration into stress-relief serious games remains insufficiently explored. Objective: This study aimed to address this gap by developing "Reverie", an Gen-AI driven serious game powered by the Unity engine and ChatGPT, and to preliminarily evaluate its effectiveness in stress reduction, user experience, and cognitive emotion regulation. Methods: A 14-day pilot study was conducted with 20 students experiencing moderate to high levels of stress. Participants used "Reverie" as a stress-relief intervention. Stress levels, user experience, and cognitive emotion regulation strategies were assessed to examine the game's feasibility and preliminary efficacy. Results: The results showed that "Reverie" significantly reduced participants' stress levels over the intervention period (p=.016*), indicating a cumulative positive effect. In addition, the game demonstrated excellent user experience and was associated with improvements in cognitive emotion regulation strategies. Conclusions: This study proposes a Gen-AI driven design framework for serious games for stress relief. Besides, this pilot study provides initial support for the feasibility and promise of combining LLM-driven gameplay in a personalized digital intervention context.

翻译：背景：压力已成为普遍现象，严肃游戏被日益认可为缓解压力的有效工具。然而，尽管生成式人工智能（Gen-AI）迅速发展，其在压力缓解类严肃游戏中的应用仍鲜有探索。目的：本研究旨在通过开发基于Unity引擎和ChatGPT、由Gen-AI驱动的严肃游戏“Reverie”来填补这一空白，并初步评估其在减压、用户体验和认知情绪调节方面的有效性。方法：开展了一项为期14天的试点研究，招募20名处于中高度压力水平的学生。参与者将“Reverie”作为压力缓解干预手段使用。通过评估压力水平、用户体验及认知情绪调节策略，检验该游戏的可行性和初步效果。结果：结果显示，在干预期间，“Reverie”显著降低了参与者的压力水平（p=.016*），表明具有累积的积极效应。此外，该游戏展现出极佳的用户体验，并与认知情绪调节策略的改善相关。结论：本研究提出了一种由Gen-AI驱动的严重游戏设计框架用于压力缓解。同时，该试点研究为结合大语言模型驱动游戏玩法的个性化数字干预的可行性和前景提供了初步支持。