Nighttime fear is common among children and may negatively affect their growth. Given the positive role of digital games in regulating children's emotions, in this study, we proposed principles for the design of a digital game to alleviate children's nighttime fears and developed a game prototype based on a survey of children and their parents. In order to verify whether digital games can reduce children's fears, the Koala Fear Questionnaire (KFQ) was used to assess the effectiveness of the game prototype in an experiment. We adopted a quasi-experimental design with non-randomized samples, including 47 subjects in the experimental group (EG) and 49 subjects in the control group (CG). The results of the analysis show that the children in the EG displayed an obvious decrease in their fear of the objects that appeared in the game. Moreover, for some children with a moderate level of fear, playing digital games could significantly reduce their fear. Therefore, this preliminary study suggests that digital games have a positive effect on alleviating children's nighttime fears.
Keywords: adventure game; child’s fear; digital game design; nighttime fear.