190 Chapter 3 could tell clinicians and researchers when and where children are encountering difficulties in the game, and provide opportunities to help at an early stage. Finally, measuring in-game behaviours provide feedback for the players, clinicians, researchers and future game-based interventions, without the biases and stigma that are associated with self-reports. The third implication applies to future research and the development of game-based interventions. Using observational codes, the current study provided a first step in testing the effect of the game mechanics in MindLight; the exposure to fear events is an important game mechanic that predicted anxiety symptoms three months later. Because of the modularity of game design, games hold the immense potential to test mechanisms of change with tightly controlled experiments. The next step for future research could be to experimentally manipulate the game mechanics in MindLight to test their causal impact on improvements in anxiety. Different versions of the game could be played with and without the game mechanics. Such experimentally controlled studies contribute to the development of a toolbox of validated game mechanics that could be used in new games targeting anxiety symptoms or other psychopathologies with the same underlying deficits.
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