Know the Limits of Game Mechanics | Hacker News Reader

Know the Limits of Game Mechanics

kellyrued.wordpress.com

15 pointsryanelkins7 comments

compulsive behaviors (something that I believe is rampantly abused in MMORPG design, but that’s another topic entirely)

I wonder why no one has figured out a way to harness variable schedule of reward as a self improvement tool? If it's powerful enough to destroy a life, it could change one.

we're working on it. i'm working on it. one of the reasons i took notes on this is because my next web app will be self-improvement that leverages these principles

mindvalley has some great starts, e.g. gratitudelog.com

It is an active point of research, but the problem is the feedback. It's hard to get metrics people can't fake.

Inasmuch as body weight is one of those unfakeable metrics, the weekly Weight Watchers weight-in (note that you pay less if you weigh less) is an example in this area.

That could be an interesting startup; maybe coupled with a to-do list or a calendar or some such productivity tool. Maybe giving the users some "free" perk randomly whenever they advanced upon some self-set goal could work.

there's already http://mindbloom.com

Great slideshow. I'm also a huge fan of this article about common pitfalls in creating achievements: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/GregMcClanahan/20091202/3709/.... In it, Kongregate's "achievements" guy gives 14 tropes that usually spell disaster.

My favorite is "Pretend that the player dies if he reaches a point where an achievement is no longer earnable, and then evaluate how frustrating that experience would be and whether it makes any sense. Since death and reaching a point where an achievement is not earnable are essentially the same thing for a player who’s only playing something to earn an achievement, this can often serve as a useful check into how the player will react."

This is definitely a hidden gem, an article I'd recommend to everyone. I think it's not getting upvotes because instead of linking directly to the slideshow, we're linked to the blog. Here's the slideshow: http://www.slideshare.net/dings/just-add-points-what-ux-can-... Watch it in full screen.

My notes:

1) specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and timed short-term and long-term goals (e.g. level 1 vs. level 11) 2) actions to achieve our goals are explicit, and prepackaged so we can directly execute on them. the only thinking we have to do is WHICH action should be done next.. sid meier: "a game is a series of interesting decisions" 3) clear relation to action and goal: the action will definitely bring us closer to the goal 4) our status is clear: spatially, in terms of our skills/possessions, in relation to our goals (points and mission stats), in our relation to other players (leaderboards/social graphs) 5) excessive positive/negative feedback (!!) 6) challenges get excessively harder (flow) 7) CHUNKING: easy challenges train you on basic skills, hard challenges require you to mix easy + difficult skills 8) social comparison: facilitates social learning, and motivates competition [who's in the game, and at what level?]

problem with transfer to work => productivity software about efficiency and speed, not fun/emotions.. "how you feel is irrelevant". (ed: i disagree.) easter eggs = non-functional excess = introduce a feeling of "play" games = play = VOLUNTARY

good games are easy to learn, difficult to master fun dynamics are good. monopoly: gaining and losing money mechanics leads to poverty gap dynamic which leads to poor experience aesthetic for losing player.

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