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Comment by Waterluvian | Hacker News Reader

I had a very similar idea this summer. But my kids are 6 and 8, so I approached it using the video game approach. It's been an absolute smash hit and entirely altered the habits of doing chores in this home. It's been about 3 months and it's still going stronger than ever. The whole thing is a static page, driven by a Google Spreadsheet that Mom and I edit to adjust goals and track progress.

https://ibb.co/RTw5sCDJ https://ibb.co/ycRB8750 https://ibb.co/gLGQ0tKT

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That is very cool! Do you have any details on how it was built or is the source code available?

Also, what happens if one of the daily missions is not completed? Is there a passive income from those?

I wrote it in an evening so it’s disaster code. I might clean it up and make it public this holiday break.

The dailies are a minimum requirement if they want screen time.

I spent a lot of time reflecting on video game incentives and disincentives and was incredibly careful not to teach the wrong thing. The very minimum behaviour we want to enshrine as routines. Everything else is treated as a bonus. Some days they get no coins and that’s fine. Points are never taken away. Coins are spent however they want.

I made a similar thing for my adult flatmates when I was still a student. I was less 8bit and less a game, but the same priciple.

The incentive was a slight rent reduction at the end of each month.

It completely failed to motivate my friends to do more chores, but it landed me my first job.

great!, mobile app?

It’s just a static hosted page they run on the family iPad. There’s no server at all!

I should really clean it up and make a blog post about it. But wanted to share it here because this project reminded me of it :)

You should make it an app, I would pay for it

This is such a great idea, I would love to implement this for my kids! Could you post a link to your blog or GitHub so people who want to know can follow you when/if you release it?

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