“The Zippy Game is conceptualized and developed by SIOP Member Ms. Aslıhan Özcan Morey from Turkiye.”

Zippy is a Fun and Therapeutic Skills-building Game

It gives children the opportunity to talk about their illness, hospital experiences and the treatment processes, and helps them gain coping skills. It is based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy approach and designed by a psychologist, a user experience expert, and a graphic designer.
Our fund was approved September 26, 2023, and we received our funding in November 15th. We started our needs assessment right away and interviewed 15 patients between the ages 6-16 (7 males 8 females), recruited from three hospitals (1 university hospital, 1 private hospital, 1 family house); as well as 5 doctors, 5 nurses and 5 mental health workers specialized in pediatric cancer. Based on our assessment, we created our tasks focused on topics as emotional awareness exercises, cognitive restructuring, coping skills such as breathing exercises, instraction methods, imagination and mindfulness/meditation suggestions and relaxation and healing touch exercises.
We designed the game for 2-4 players at a time. The game board has 3 different levels that can be finished on 3 different time sets. The small version is ready and it has 4 different hospital rooms (Picture 1). The first player who visits the rooms, collects all the tokens, leaves the hospital and wins the game! We have 6 sets of psychoeducational cards that are designed to be fun and engaging. These cards are used to move around the board and help making the game more challenging (Picture 2, 3, 4).
We are currently designing the box of the game and testing the effectiveness of the game. Our game box will include an extendable game board with 3 different levels (min 4 rooms, max 8 rooms to visit), 12 different pawn characters and 4 pawn legs (for max 4 players), 1 dice, 32 room tokens (to be collected to win, 4 for each room, 8 rooms in total), 4 trays to collect room tokens, 32 knowledge cards, 24 action cards, 32 truth cards, 32 courage cards, 26 chance cards, 48 room cards, 4 card holders and a game manual.
We are a little behind then our planned schedule. We still have to finish testing the effectiveness and review the design for some details. We would like to thank you for your support.
Zippy Team

Picture 1: The game’s board

Picture 2: Knowledge and Courage Cards

Picture 3: Action and Truth Cards

Picture 4: Chance and Room Cards