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A café
for the loudest morning
of a student's life.
Solace Cafe is a two-player mobile RPG built for HKDSE results day. The student plays a barista at a quiet Japanese café; a social worker plays a café manager. Branching dialogue, six small mini-games, and one customer reaction at the end. The shift is the conversation.
UX/UI
Role
Emotional Support
Context
HKDSE candidate
Users
Game UX
RPG
Outsource
scroll
+
HKDSE candidate participant
-Player
RPG-game
Year
OVERVIEW
One shift, two players, one quiet conversation.
Every July, more than 40,000 Hong Kong students open their HKDSE results before noon — six years of preparation collapsed into a single screen. Social workers are reachable. Many don't reach out.
Solace Café reframes the morning as a café shift: the student opens the shop with the manager and works the counter as customers drift in for drinks and small talk. The manager is the social worker. The shift is the conversation.
The interior, the lighting, even the drink in the cup shift quietly with each answer the student gives — buying them fifteen minutes of distance from a number, and giving the social worker fifteen minutes of legible signal.
星島頭條2025-12-20
中學生面對DSE心理困擾普遍化 調查：受訪學生2成壓力滿分、4成有抑鬱症狀
香港電台2025-11-23
生活存關愛：社聯「Secret Chat 默密傾」計劃 (青年精神健康)
明報健康網2025-12-18
【精神健康】調查：四成中五六生呈抑鬱焦慮徵狀 66%從未接受心理服務
香港社會服務聯2025-07-09
社聯「Secret Chat 默密傾」計劃：工具及指引協助社工陪伴DSE學生迎放榜
The Problems
Results day is the loudest dayof a student's life. Most spend it alone.
Social workers want to reach students. Students do not want to be reached. A direct check-in reads as alarm — and alarm closes the conversation before it begins.
Insight
What the numbers said.
Before any role-play, before any café, there was a survey. The numbers shaped every decision that followed — including the decision that this should not look like a mental health app at all.
41.9
%
of surveyed DSE students showed depression or anxiety symptoms; 24% had both at once.
HKCSS Survey · Feb–Apr 2025 · n=1,017
20.9
%
rated their stress at the maximum — 10 out of 10. Mean stress index across the sample was 7.4.
HKCSS Survey · Feb–Apr 2025
66
%
of surveyed students had never accessed a mental health service.
HKCSS Survey · cited in Mingpao
1
/6
HK youth experience mental health distress — fewer than 3 in 10 seek professional support.
HKCSS · Secret Chat programme brief
SOLUTION
The café does the work!
cast
Two players, one café.
Both players are café staff. One is the manager who's been here a while; the other is the barista on the counter. The wellbeing function is folded entirely into the fiction — neither is a patient or a clinician, both are on shift together.
Player-A
The Café Manager.
They've run the shop long enough to know the rhythm of a morning. They know how the grinder sounds when it's right, how the milk should foam, and how to ask a small question while their hands are busy. Played by the social worker.
In-game role
Café Manager
played by
The social worker
Tell
Trained ear, knows the routines
Carries
Choice of opening question, how they share turns
Player-B
The Barista.
The new face on the counter. They know enough to be useful, not enough to feel settled. The manager is showing them around — which beans, which cup, when to pour. Usually played by the student. What they don't know — and what the manager quietly notices — is which version of themself walked in this morning.
In-game role
Barista
played by
The student
Tell
Pace of choice, how steadythe pour, length of replies
Carries
A folded result slip,somewhere in a pocket
envirnment
Five variables, 243 cafés.
The reactive environment runs on five sliders. Each is set by what the student answers across the shift; together they compose the café the customer walks into. Five variables, three options each — no two shifts settle on the same room.
A
DECOR
café on a
Weather
day, with a view of
window
.
The atmosphere is filled with
ambient
,
creating a
mood
feeling.
VAR 01
DECOR
An echo of the student's inner state.
Industrial
Detachment. Calm. The rational.
Minimalist modern
Inner stillness or lacking direction.
Cozy Japanese wood
For those reaching for calm.
VAR 02
Weather
The emotional climate of the day.
Sunny
Hope. Momentum.
Stormy
Hesitation, anxiety, pressed-down.
Nighttime
Contemplation. Uncertainty.
VAR 03
Window
A reflection of the inner world.
A peaceful lake
Searching for inner peace.
Old buildings
Stuck in the past.
A neon-lit skyline
Craving connection, feeling alone.
VAR 04
Ambient
The sensory — scent, light, sound.
Coffee & soft jazz
Rich aroma, low horns.
City hum & damp wood
Distant noise, rain on timber.
Pastries & old books
Just-baked sweetness, paper dust.
VAR 05
Mood
The overall vibe of the room.
Warm & inviting
Safety. Comfort.
Lonely & reflective
Solitude. Depth.
Laid-back & comforting
Release. Ease.
35 = 243 possible combinationsacross one shift.
The student answers a coffee customer's small questions. The room behind them becomes the answer — visible to the social worker as atmosphere, available to both players as a shared third object to point at.
Feature 01
Dialogue that remembers.
At key moments, the student picks from a small set of response options. The social worker sees the choice land the second it's made — no delay, no aggregated dashboard, no algorithm in between.
The conversation is the source: not a summary, not a sentiment score. The line the student actually chose, in the moment they chose it.
Feature 02
The room responds.
The café's music, lighting, and interior shift in combination with each dialogue choice. A different track plays; the lights warm or cool; small details in the wood-grain, window, and counter change with the conversation. No two shifts feel the same.
The student doesn't have to say how they're doing — the room reads it from their choices and reflects it back. The social worker has a fast visual read on where the conversation has gone, without interrupting to ask. And the change itself becomes something to point at: the music changed is easier to say than I feel different now.
Feature 03
Six small games,
alternating turns.
Between the conversation, student and social worker take turns through the six steps of making one cup of coffee: choosing the cup, picking defect beans, grinding, dosing water, steaming milk, and pouring latte art. Each game is short and tactile — long-press a stream, time a tap, drag along a curve.
The work is the rhythm. Conversation lives in the spaces between.
Feature 04
What the first sip says.
At the end of the six mini-games, the finished drink reaches the customer. They take the first sip and respond — one of three reactions, depending on how the coffee turned out across the shift. The cup is the score; the customer's face is the feedback.
From there, players can share a photo of the finished drink to social media, or step back to the lobby and open a new room when they're ready.
Reflection
"
None of the playtesters who began with "I wouldn't use a mental health app" named it as one after a full fifteen-minute shift. The real argument behind that: wellbeing tools for teenagers should look less like wellbeing tools, and more like games that earn the right to ask quieter questions.
— Chan Cheuk Yin · personal reflection
Game UX
RPG
Outsource
A café
for the loudest morning
of a student's life.
Solace Cafe is a two-player mobile RPG built for HKDSE results day. The student plays a barista at a quiet Japanese café; a social worker plays a café manager. Branching dialogue, six small mini-games, and one customer reaction at the end. The shift is the conversation.
UX/UI
Role
Emotional Support
Context
HKDSE candidate
Users
scroll
+
HKDSE candidate participant
-Player
RPG-game
Year
OVERVIEW
One shift, two players, one quiet conversation.
Every July, more than 40,000 Hong Kong students open their HKDSE results before noon — six years of preparation collapsed into a single screen. Social workers are reachable. Many don't reach out.
Solace Café reframes the morning as a café shift: the student opens the shop with the manager and works the counter as customers drift in for drinks and small talk. The manager is the social worker. The shift is the conversation.
The interior, the lighting, even the drink in the cup shift quietly with each answer the student gives — buying them fifteen minutes of distance from a number, and giving the social worker fifteen minutes of legible signal.
星島頭條 |2025-12-20
中學生面對DSE心理困擾普遍化 調查：受訪學生2成壓力滿分、4成有抑鬱症狀
香港電台 | 2025-11-23
生活存關愛：社聯「Secret Chat 默密傾」計劃 (青年精神健康)
明報健康網 | 2025-12-18
【精神健康】調查：四成中五六生呈抑鬱焦慮徵狀 66%從未接受心理服務
香港社會服務聯會 | 2025-07-09
社聯「Secret Chat 默密傾」計劃：工具及指引協助社工陪伴DSE學生迎放榜
The Problems
Results day is the loudest day of a student's life.Most spend it alone.
Social workers want to reach students. Students do not want to be reached. A direct check-in reads as alarm — and alarm closes the conversation before it begins.
Insight
What the numbers said.
Before any role-play, before any café, there was a survey. The numbers shaped every decision that followed — including the decision that this should not look like a mental health app at all.
41.9
%
of surveyed DSE students showed depression or anxiety symptoms; 24% had both at once.
HKCSS Survey · Feb–Apr 2025 · n=1,017
20.9
%
rated their stress at the maximum — 10 out of 10. Mean stress index across the sample was 7.4.
HKCSS Survey · Feb–Apr 2025
66
%
of surveyed students had never accessed a mental health service.
HKCSS Survey · cited in Mingpao
1
/6
HK youth experience mental health distress — fewer than 3 in 10 seek professional support.
HKCSS · Secret Chat programme brief
SOLUTION
The café does the work!
cast
Two players, one café.
Both players are café staff. One is the manager who's been here a while; the other is the barista on the counter. The wellbeing function is folded entirely into the fiction — neither is a patient or a clinician, both are on shift together.
Player-A
The Café Manager.
They've run the shop long enough to know the rhythm of a morning. They know how the grinder sounds when it's right, how the milk should foam, and how to ask a small question while their hands are busy. Played by the social worker.
In-game role
Café Manager
played by
The social worker
Tell
Trained ear, knows the routines
Carries
Choice of opening question, how they share turns
Player-B
The Barista.
The new face on the counter. They know enough to be useful, not enough to feel settled. The manager is showing them around — which beans, which cup, when to pour. Usually played by the student. What they don't know — and what the manager quietly notices — is which version of themself walked in this morning.
In-game role
Barista
played by
The student
Tell
Pace of choice, how steadythe pour, length of replies
Carries
A folded result slip,somewhere in a pocket
envirnment
Five variables, 243 cafés.
The reactive environment runs on five sliders. Each is set by what the student answers across the shift; together they compose the café the customer walks into. Five variables, three options each — no two shifts settle on the same room.
A
DECOR
café on a
Weather
day, with a view of
window
.
The atmosphere is filled with
ambient
,
creating a
mood
feeling.
VAR 01
DECOR
An echo of the student's inner state.
Industrial
Detachment. Calm. The rational.
Minimalist modern
Inner stillness or lacking direction.
Cozy Japanese wood
For those reaching for calm.
VAR 02
Weather
The emotional climate of the day.
Sunny
Hope. Momentum.
Stormy
Hesitation, anxiety, pressed-down.
Nighttime
Contemplation. Uncertainty.
VAR 03
Window
A reflection of the inner world.
A peaceful lake
Searching for inner peace.
Old buildings
Stuck in the past.
A neon-lit skyline
Craving connection, feeling alone.
VAR 04
Ambient
The sensory — scent, light, sound.
Coffee & soft jazz
Rich aroma, low horns.
City hum & damp wood
Distant noise, rain on timber.
Pastries & old books
Just-baked sweetness, paper dust.
VAR 05
Mood
The overall vibe of the room.
Warm & inviting
Safety. Comfort.
Lonely & reflective
Solitude. Depth.
Laid-back & comforting
Release. Ease.
35 = 243 possible combinations across one shift.
The student answers a coffee customer's small questions. The room behind them becomes the answer — visible to the social worker as atmosphere, available to both players as a shared third object to point at.
Feature 01
Dialogue that remembers.
At key moments, the student picks from a small set of response options. The social worker sees the choice land the second it's made — no delay, no aggregated dashboard, no algorithm in between.
The conversation is the source: not a summary, not a sentiment score. The line the student actually chose, in the moment they chose it.
Feature 02
The room responds.
The café's music, lighting, and interior shift in combination with each dialogue choice. A different track plays; the lights warm or cool; small details in the wood-grain, window, and counter change with the conversation. No two shifts feel the same.
The student doesn't have to say how they're doing — the room reads it from their choices and reflects it back. The social worker has a fast visual read on where the conversation has gone, without interrupting to ask. And the change itself becomes something to point at: the music changed is easier to say than I feel different now.
Feature 03
Six small games,alternating turns.
Between the conversation, student and social worker take turns through the six steps of making one cup of coffee: choosing the cup, picking defect beans, grinding, dosing water, steaming milk, and pouring latte art. Each game is short and tactile — long-press a stream, time a tap, drag along a curve.
The work is the rhythm. Conversation lives in the spaces between.
Feature 04
What the first sip says.
At the end of the six mini-games, the finished drink reaches the customer. They take the first sip and respond — one of three reactions, depending on how the coffee turned out across the shift. The cup is the score; the customer's face is the feedback.
From there, players can share a photo of the finished drink to social media, or step back to the lobby and open a new room when they're ready.
Reflection
"
None of the playtesters who began with "I wouldn't use a mental health app" named it as one after a full fifteen-minute shift. The real argument behind that: wellbeing tools for teenagers should look less like wellbeing tools, and more like games that earn the right to ask quieter questions.
— Chan Cheuk Yin · personal reflection
Game UX
RPG
Outsource
A café
for the loudest morning
of a student's life.
Solace Cafe is a two-player mobile RPG built for HKDSE results day. The student plays a barista at a quiet Japanese café; a social worker plays a café manager. Branching dialogue, six small mini-games, and one customer reaction at the end. The shift is the conversation.
UX/UI
Role
Emotional Support
Context
HKDSE candidate
Users
scroll
+
HKDSE candidate participant
-Player
RPG-game
Year
OVERVIEW
One shift, two players, one quiet conversation.
Every July, more than 40,000 Hong Kong students open their HKDSE results before noon — six years of preparation collapsed into a single screen. Social workers are reachable. Many don't reach out.
Solace Café reframes the morning as a café shift: the student opens the shop with the manager and works the counter as customers drift in for drinks and small talk. The manager is the social worker. The shift is the conversation.
The interior, the lighting, even the drink in the cup shift quietly with each answer the student gives — buying them fifteen minutes of distance from a number, and giving the social worker fifteen minutes of legible signal.
星島頭條 | 2025-12-20
中學生面對DSE心理困擾普遍化 調查：受訪學生2成壓力滿分、4成有抑鬱症狀
香港電台 | 2025-11-23
生活存關愛：社聯「Secret Chat 默密傾」計劃 (青年精神健康)
明報健康網 | 2025-12-18
【精神健康】調查：四成中五六生呈抑鬱焦慮徵狀 66%從未接受心理服務
香港社會服務聯會 | 2025-07-09
社聯「Secret Chat 默密傾」計劃：工具及指引協助社工陪伴DSE學生迎放榜
The Problems
Results day is the loudest day of a student's life. Most spend it alone.
Social workers want to reach students. Students do not want to be reached. A direct check-in reads as alarm — and alarm closes the conversation before it begins.
Insight
What the numbers said.
Before any role-play, before any café, there was a survey. The numbers shaped every decision that followed — including the decision that this should not look like a mental health app at all.
41.9
%
of surveyed DSE students showed depression or anxiety symptoms; 24% had both at once.
HKCSS Survey · Feb–Apr 2025 · n=1,017
20.9
%
rated their stress at the maximum — 10 out of 10. Mean stress index across the sample was 7.4.
HKCSS Survey · Feb–Apr 2025
66
%
of surveyed students had never accessed a mental health service.
HKCSS Survey · cited in Mingpao
1
/6
HK youth experience mental health distress — fewer than 3 in 10 seek professional support.
HKCSS · Secret Chat programme brief
SOLUTION
The café does the work!
cast
Two players, one café.
Both players are café staff. One is the manager who's been here a while; the other is the barista on the counter. The wellbeing function is folded entirely into the fiction — neither is a patient or a clinician, both are on shift together.
Player-A
The Café Manager.
They've run the shop long enough to know the rhythm of a morning. They know how the grinder sounds when it's right, how the milk should foam, and how to ask a small question while their hands are busy. Played by the social worker.
In-game role
Café Manager
played by
The social worker
Tell
Trained ear, knows the routines
Carries
Choice of opening question, how they share turns
Player-B
The Barista.
The new face on the counter. They know enough to be useful, not enough to feel settled. The manager is showing them around — which beans, which cup, when to pour. Usually played by the student. What they don't know — and what the manager quietly notices — is which version of themself walked in this morning.
In-game role
Barista
played by
The student
Tell
Pace of choice, how steadythe pour, length of replies
Carries
A folded result slip,somewhere in a pocket
environment
Five variables, 243 cafés.
The reactive environment runs on five sliders. Each is set by what the student answers across the shift; together they compose the café the customer walks into. Five variables, three options each — no two shifts settle on the same room.
A
DECOR
café on a
Weather
day, with a view of
window
.
The atmosphere is filled with
ambient
,
creating a
mood
feeling.
VAR 01
DECOR
An echo of the student's inner state.
Industrial
Detachment. Calm. The rational.
Minimalist modern
Inner stillness or lacking direction.
Cozy Japanese wood
For those reaching for calm.
VAR 02
Weather
The emotional climate of the day.
Sunny
Hope. Momentum.
Stormy
Hesitation, anxiety, pressed-down.
Nighttime
Contemplation. Uncertainty.
VAR 03
Window
A reflection of the inner world.
A peaceful lake
Searching for inner peace.
Old buildings
Stuck in the past.
A neon-lit skyline
Craving connection, feeling alone.
VAR 04
Ambient
The sensory — scent, light, sound.
Coffee & soft jazz
Rich aroma, low horns.
City hum & damp wood
Distant noise, rain on timber.
Pastries & old books
Just-baked sweetness, paper dust.
VAR 05
Mood
The overall vibe of the room.
Warm & inviting
Safety. Comfort.
Lonely & reflective
Solitude. Depth.
Laid-back & comforting
Release. Ease.
35 = 243 possible combinations across one shift.
The student answers a coffee customer's small questions. The room behind them becomes the answer — visible to the social worker as atmosphere, available to both players as a shared third object to point at.
Feature 01
Dialogue that remembers.
At key moments, the student picks from a small set of response options. The social worker sees the choice land the second it's made — no delay, no aggregated dashboard, no algorithm in between.
The conversation is the source: not a summary, not a sentiment score. The line the student actually chose, in the moment they chose it.
Feature 02
The room responds.
The café's music, lighting, and interior shift in combination with each dialogue choice. A different track plays; the lights warm or cool; small details in the wood-grain, window, and counter change with the conversation. No two shifts feel the same.
The student doesn't have to say how they're doing — the room reads it from their choices and reflects it back. The social worker has a fast visual read on where the conversation has gone, without interrupting to ask. And the change itself becomes something to point at: the music changed is easier to say than I feel different now.
Feature 03
Six small games, alternating turns.
Between the conversation, student and social worker take turns through the six steps of making one cup of coffee: choosing the cup, picking defect beans, grinding, dosing water, steaming milk, and pouring latte art. Each game is short and tactile — long-press a stream, time a tap, drag along a curve.
The work is the rhythm. Conversation lives in the spaces between.
Feature 04
What the first sip says.
At the end of the six mini-games, the finished drink reaches the customer. They take the first sip and respond — one of three reactions, depending on how the coffee turned out across the shift. The cup is the score; the customer's face is the feedback.
From there, players can share a photo of the finished drink to social media, or step back to the lobby and open a new room when they're ready.
Reflection
"
None of the playtesters who began with "I wouldn't use a mental health app" named it as one after a full fifteen-minute shift. The real argument behind that: wellbeing tools for teenagers should look less like wellbeing tools, and more like games that earn the right to ask quieter questions.
— Chan Cheuk Yin · personal reflection