What if facing your fears could feel like playing a video game — and your own heartbeat guided the experience?

That’s exactly what Nyctophy sets out to do. Developed at Bina Nusantara University, Nyctophy is a virtual reality game designed to help people overcome nyctophobia — the fear of darkness — using real-time heart rate feedback powered by HypeRate.

A New Era of Phobia Therapy

Built in Unity and compatible with Meta Quest 2 and smartwatches like the Xiaomi Mi Band 7, Nyctophy blends therapy and technology. Players explore a dark virtual house, completing tasks like turning on generators or placing fuses — all while their heart rate influences the brightness of their flashlight.

The faster the heart beats, the dimmer the light becomes — creating an adaptive, deeply immersive challenge that mirrors real emotional responses to fear.

Powered by Real-Time Biofeedback

Through HypeRate’s real-time heart rate API, Nyctophy continuously monitors players’ physiological responses. Each session logs heart rate data and completion time, transforming emotional reactions into measurable insights. This approach not only personalizes the therapeutic process but also enables researchers to study how the body reacts to fear in real-time.

Results That Beat Faster in VR

Tests with 34 participants showed something remarkable: players took over twice as long to complete the VR version (8:12 min) compared to the keyboard–mouse version (3:54 min).

Why? The immersive environment amplified emotional engagement — their hearts literally raced faster in virtual reality. Statistical analysis confirmed significant physiological differences between high- and low-fear participants, underscoring the potential of VR combined with biofeedback for therapeutic use.

Why This Matters

While exposure therapy and CBT have long been cornerstones of phobia treatment, Nyctophy demonstrates how serious games and real-time heart data can make therapy safer, more accessible, and even enjoyable.

Unlike traditional methods, no therapist or real-world exposure is required — everything happens inside a controlled, data-driven virtual space.

Built on Open Science and Collaboration

The project is fully open source (GitHub link) and integrates HypeRate’s public API, making it easy for researchers, developers, and mental health professionals to replicate or build upon the work. It’s a perfect example of how heart rate analytics and gaming innovation can come together to make mental health more measurable and interactive.

Read the Full Research Paper

The study was published in Software Impacts (Elsevier, 2025):

👉 Nyctophy: Development of virtual reality and smartwatch integrated serious game for nyctophobia therapy

In Short

Nyctophy is more than a game — it’s a step toward emotion-aware therapy powered by data.

By combining HypeRate’s real-time biometric feedback with the immersion of VR, the research team has created a glimpse into the future of how we can understand, measure, and treat fear through play.