치유형 원예게임 시각미학이 청년 플레이어 행복감에 미치는 영향 = A Study on the Influence of Visual Aesthetic Mechanisms in Healing-Oriented Horticultural Simulation Games on Young Players’ Well-Being

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

With the accelerating pace of contemporary society, Chinese youth (aged 14–35) are increasingly experiencing prominent mental health challenges due to multiple pressures such as academic demands, employment competition, and social adaptation. The growing need for emotional regulation among young people has made digital entertainment an increasingly important way for them to relieve stress and achieve psychological relaxation. Compared with passive forms of content such as short videos and live streams, digital games—through active participation, instant feedback, and immersive experiences—can regulate emotions and enhance enjoyment more effectively. Among various types of digital games, healing-oriented horticultural games—characterized by plant cultivation, scene construction, and natural landscape appreciation—use soothing colors, nature-simulated environments, and emotionally friendly interactions to create a digital space that brings players closer to nature and provides psychological relaxation and restoration.
In terms of visual aesthetics, this study draws on relevant aesthetic theories and integrates the visual characteristics of games to systematically identify four core visual aesthetic variables: color, scene, character, and UI. In terms of psychological mechanisms, this study adopts Subjective Well-Being as the theoretical basis of well-being, which is divided into two components: the affective dimension and the cognitive dimension. Flow experience is defined with reference to the nine core dimensions synthesized and organized by Norsworthy et al. (2017), including clear goals, unambiguous feedback, concentration on the task at hand, sense of control, merging of action and awareness, transformation of time, among others. Together, these dimensions represent the optimal experiential state that players may achieve during gameplay. Based on this, the present study constructs a theoretical model aimed at revealing the relationships among visual aesthetics, well-being, and flow experience in healing-oriented horticultural games.
To examine these relationships, this study surveyed young players of healing-oriented horticultural games and collected a total of 353 valid responses. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was employed to empirically test the path relationships between the four dimensions of visual aesthetics (color, scene, character, and UI), flow experience, and well-being. In addition, the Bootstrap method was used to verify the mediating effect of flow experience. The results indicate that visual aesthetics have a significant positive effect on flow experience, with the scene dimension showing the strongest influence. Visual aesthetics also significantly enhance well-being, among which the character dimension exerts the greatest impact. Moreover, flow experience has a significant positive effect on well-being and serves as a mediating variable in the relationship between visual aesthetics and well-being. These results suggest that the visual aesthetics of healing-oriented horticultural games can directly enhance players’ flow experience and well-being. Meanwhile, flow experience itself also has a significant positive effect on well-being and further strengthens the impact of visual aesthetics on well-being by functioning as a mediating mechanism. This reveals a dual mechanism through which the visual aesthetics of healing-oriented horticultural games influence the subjective well-being of young players.
Based on the above results, this study verified the positive effect of visual aesthetics on subjective well-being in the context of healing-oriented horticultural games, indicating that visual aesthetics can directly enhance players’ well-being and may exert similar effects in other healing-oriented games with comparable visual components such as color, scene, character, and UI. Meanwhile, this study confirmed that the path structure of “visual aesthetics → flow experience → subjective well-being” is stable within the current sample. Although different healing-oriented games vary in themes and gameplay, this mechanism may still be applicable as long as they share similarities in the application of visual aesthetic elements. The four core elements of visual aesthetics can facilitate players’ entry into a flow experience in healing-oriented horticultural games, and may have similar effects in other game types with comparable visual aesthetic structures; however, the strength of these effects may vary depending on the game genre.
Overall, this study, grounded in an integrated framework of visual aesthetics and psychological experience mechanisms, provides theoretical foundations and practical insights for optimizing visual design and enhancing user experience in healing-oriented horticultural games. It also further demonstrates the potential value of digital entertainment in supporting youth emotions and promoting mental health.
This study constructed a mechanism among visual aesthetics, flow experience, and subjective well-being and empirically validated it through a questionnaire survey; however, certain limitations remain. First, the sample mainly consisted of Chinese players, and cultural differences may limit the cross-regional generalizability of the findings. Second, the study focused solely on healing-oriented horticultural games, and caution is needed when generalizing the findings to other game genres. Third, the research relied primarily on quantitative questionnaire data and lacked qualitative or mixed-method approaches such as interviews and experiments, which could provide deeper insights into players’ emotional experiences and behavioral mechanisms.
Therefore, future research should be further expanded. First, the mechanism validated in this study can be extended from healing-oriented horticultural games to other game genres in order to examine its applicability across different gaming contexts. Second, additional visual-related variables such as lighting effects could be included to build a more comprehensive visual experience model. Finally, employing additional research methods such as interviews and experiments to complement quantitative analysis may allow for a deeper understanding of players’ experiences and underlying psychological mechanisms. Through these extensions, the generalizability and practical value of the findings may be enhanced, thereby providing more comprehensive support for the theoretical development and design practice of healing-oriented games.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

随着社会节奏不断加快，中国青年群体（14—35岁）在学习压力、就业竞争以及社会适应等多重因素的影响下，心理健康问题呈现愈加突出的趋势。青年群体情绪调节需求的上升，使数字娱乐逐渐成为青年缓解压力、获得心理放松的重要途径。与短视频、直播等以被动接受为主的内容相比，数字游戏因其主动参与、即时反馈与沉浸式体验等特性，能够更有效地调节情绪、提升愉悦感。在众多数字游戏类型之中，治愈型园艺游戏以植物培育、场景建造、自然景观欣赏为核心玩法，以治愈的色彩、模拟自然的环境与情绪友好型互动构成为特征，为玩家提供了接近自然、放松身心的数字化心理恢复环境。
在视觉美学方面，本研究基于视觉美学相关理论，并结合游戏的视觉呈现特征，通过系统分析归纳出色彩、场景、角色与 UI 四个核心视觉美学变量。在心理机制方面，本研究采用心流体验参考 Norsworthy 等（2017）所整理的九个维度进行界定，包括明确目标、即时反馈、专注、控制感、行动与意识融合、时间感改变、自我意识弱化等特征，完整呈现玩家在游戏过程中所可能产生的最佳体验状态。幸福感采用“主观幸福感”（Subjective Well-Being）作为理论基础，将其划分为情感维度与认知维度两部分；基于此，本研究构建理论模型，旨在揭示治愈型园艺游戏中视觉美学，幸福感，心流体验三者的关系。
为检验上述关系，本研究以治愈型园艺青年游戏玩家为研究对象，共回收353份有效问卷，并运用结构方程模型（SEM）对视觉美学四个维度（色彩、场景、角色、UI）与心流体验及幸福感之间的路径关系进行实证检验，同时采用 Bootstrap 方法对心流体验的中介效应进行验证。研究结果显示：视觉美学对心流体验具有显著正向影响，其中以场景维度的影响最为突出；视觉美学对幸福感同样具有显著促进作用，其中角色维度影响最大；心流体验对幸福感具有显著正向影响，并在视觉美学作用幸福感的过程中发挥中介作用。
上述结果表明，治愈型园艺游戏中的视觉美学能够直接提升玩家的心流体验与幸福感；同时，心流体验本身也对幸福感具有显著促进作用，并作为中介机制进一步强化视觉美学对幸福感的影响。由此揭示了治愈型园艺游戏视觉美学影响青年玩家幸福感的双重机制。
基于上述结果，本研究在治愈型园艺游戏情境中验证了视觉美学对幸福感的正向影响，表明视觉美学能够直接提升玩家的幸福感，并可能在色彩、场景、角色与 UI 视觉构成相似的其他治愈型游戏中发挥相同作用。 同时，本研究确认了“视觉美学 → 心流体验 → 幸福感”的路径结构在本样本中具有稳定性。尽管不同治愈型游戏在主题与玩法上存在差异，但只要在视觉美学元素的运用上具有相似性，该机制仍可能适用；视觉美学四要素能够在治愈型园艺游戏中促进玩家进入心流体验，并可能在视觉美学结构一致的其他类型游戏中发挥类似作用，但其影响强度会因游戏类型不同而有所差异。
总体而言，本研究以视觉美学与心理体验机制的整合框架为基础，为治愈型园艺游戏的视觉设计优化及用户体验提升提供了理论依据与实践参考，亦进一步证明数字娱乐在青年情绪支持与心理健康促进方面具有潜在价值。
本研究在视觉美学、心流体验与幸福感之间构建了作用机制并通过问卷实证进行验证，但仍存在一定局限：第一，样本主要来自中国玩家，文化差异可能影响结论的跨地区普适性；第二，仅以治愈型园艺游戏为研究范围，结果向其他游戏类型推广时仍需谨慎；第三，研究方法依赖量化问卷，缺乏访谈、实验等质性或混合方法对玩家情绪与行为机制的深入揭示。
因此未来研究将进一步拓展。首先，可将本研究所验证的作用机制从治愈型园艺游戏延伸至更多游戏类型，以检验其在不同游戏情境中的适用性。其次，可纳入光影变化等更多与视觉相关的变量，以构建更完整的视觉体验模型。最后，将采用访谈、实验等多研究方法补充量化分析，以更深入揭示玩家体验与心理机制。通过上述拓展，将有助于提升研究结论的普适性与应用价值，为治愈型游戏的理论构建与设计实践提供更全面支持。

목차 (Table of Contents)

• 1. 서 론 1
• 1.1. 연구 배경 2
• 1.1.1. 사회적 배경 2
• 1.1.2. 산업적 배경 5
• 1.1.3. 디자인 배경 22
• 1.2. 연구대상 24
• 1.3. 연구의 필요성 25
• 1.4. 연구목적 26
• 1.5. 연구 진행 단계 설정 26
• 2. 이론적 연구 28
• 2.1. 치유형 원예 게임 29
• 2.1.1. 치유형 게임 메커니즘 29
• 2.1.2. 원예 치유 메커니즘 31
• 2.1.3. 디지털 공간 전이의 메커니즘 32
• 2.1.4. 치유형 원예 게임의 이론 통합 및 개념 정의 34
• 2.2. 시각 미학 35
• 2.2.1. 시각 미학의 정의 35
• 2.2.2. 게임에서의 시각 미학 요소 36
• 2.3. 플로우 경험 38
• 2.3.1. 플로우 경험 개념 38
• 2.3.2. 게임 시각 미학의 플로우 경험 촉진 역할 39
• 2.4. 행복감 44
• 2.4.1. 행복감 개념 44
• 2.4.2. 게임 시각 미학이 행복감에 미치는 영향 45
• 2.4.3. 플로우 경험이 행복감에 미치는 영향의 이론적 기반 50
• 2.4.4. 플로우 경험의 행복감 증진 효과 50
• 2.4.5. 이론 종합 56
• 3. 실증 연구 58
• 3.1. 연구 방법 59
• 3.2. 연구 대상 59
• 3.3. 치유형 원예 게임 사례 분석 60
• 3.3.1. 연구 범위 60
• 3.3.2. <도원심처유인가>(桃源深处有人家) 게임 사례 분석 60
• 3.3.3. <고양이와 스프: 말랑 타운> 게임 사례 분석 74
• 3.4. 연구 변수 도출 84
• 3.5. 연구 가설 및 모형 설정 85
• 3.6. 설문지 설계 86
• 3.7. 데이터 분석 87
• 3.7.1. 기술통계 분석 87
• 3.7.2. 신뢰도 검증 88
• 3.7.3. 타당도 검증 89
• 3.7.4. 확인적 변수분석 90
• 3.7.5. 구조방정식 모형 결과 92
• 3.7.6. Bootstrap 매개효과 검증 결과 94
• 3.8. 소결 95
• 4. 결론 96
• 4.1. 결론 종합 97
• 4.1.1. 연구결론 97
• 4.1.2. 일반화 결론 100
• 4.2. 결론의 의의 101
• 5. 향후연구 103
• 5.1. 연구의 한계 104
• 5.2. 향후 연구 105
• 참고문헌 107
• 설문지 설계 117