This project provides a kit designed to create an immersive experience that raises awareness about mental health and available resources. Our partners, Jugenddienst Merano and Forum Prevenzione, will use this tool to facilitate workshops for teenagers aged 14 to 19.
The experience adopts an escape room format, using a compelling storyline and riddles to explore mental health challenges. Through play and reflection, the goal is for participants to understand that they are not alone and that, with the right tools and resources, they have the power to change their environment.
The project goal is to create an immersive educational experience that teaches youth about mental health resources and provides them with tools to cope with loneliness.
In addition, the prototype has to be portable and easy to set up to ensure that Forum Prevenzione and Junggenddienst Meran, will be able to transport it to different locations to make the experience accessible to more people.
Loneliness is a universal experience underlying many mental health challenges, making it an ideal theme for building resilience in young people. Yet open discussion of these topics remains scarce among teenagers, who are held back by shame, fear of judgement and concerns about parental reporting — despite the fact that untreated mental health issues tend to worsen over time. An escape room format addresses this gap uniquely: its immersive environment and collaborative nature encourage participants to embody characters, reflect on their own feelings, and solve problems themselves, increasing both engagement and information retention. Together, these elements help teenagers recognise their emotions, distinguish healthy coping strategies from harmful ones, and understand that they are never truly alone.
This project is ongoing, this prototype represents only the first step. After consulting with various experts, we realized that this project was highly ambitious given our timeframe of ~ 3 months; typically, a full-scale escape room requires around a year to be thoroughly developed and tested. Nevertheless, we believe this prototype serves as a strong foundation for future iterations.
We hope to keep developing and testing this project alongside our partners and experts, to make sure it becomes a usable educational tool.
Testing the prototype and the riddles during the Mental Health Festival 09.05.2026
Testing the storyline and inviting people to vote on the narrative direction
Testing the structure and how people interact with the space
Print survey distribution with Jugenddienst Meran of the youth mental health survey
Special Thanks to Marco Valente (Jugenddienst Meran), Katharina Weger (Jugenddienst Meran), Corinne Bertoncini (Forum Prevenzione), Waldner Hannes (Game Designer, Experienced Educator & Speaker), Erik (Spielecafe Eppan), Associazione A.M.A. Trento, Ilaria Perrucini (Representative of Italian school counselors), Jacopo Fanchi Schiesaro and Anna Cerrato (Spazio BZ), for helping us in the development of the project
