“If This Then That” Logic in Gamification

One of the things I love about coding is the simple logical basis that it is all built on.  A lot of it can be boiled down to four simple words: If This Then That. If a condition is met, then do something.

There is obviously more to it than that. We have And, Or, Else, ElseIf, When etc, but the heart for me is If This Then That.

For example, in a game, you could have

• IF player presses a button (THIS) THEN make the player jump (THAT).
• In gamification, you could see IF user gets 500 points (THIS) THEN give user badge (THAT).

Of course, we can expand on that sort of logic with the operators I mentioned before.

• IF user gets 500 points OR user completes training level 3 THEN give user badge.
• IF user completes training level 4 AND gets 100% THEN unlock bonus training level.

You could increase the complexity of that last one to include an extra condition that talks about just completing level 4 without getting 100%

IF user completes training level 4 AND gets 100% THEN unlock bonus training level ELSE IF user completes training level 4 THEN give user 100 points.

As you can see, you can start to build up logical sentences using simple operators. Why am I telling you this, though? Well, because this is how my mind works. In fact, I have been known to speak to people in similar sentences! It helps to simplify some of the more complex parts of thinking and gamification. It is especially helpful when you are trying to figure out progression pathways, unlocks conditions, reward conditions and the like. Anything where a user action leads to the system doing something.

Try to simplify everything you can. Perfectio in Simplicitate

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