Really Simple Gamification – Randomness

Recently my daughter decided to start her YouTube videos again. Previously she had been doing “opening” videos, where she opened toys nod spoke about them. However, now she wanted to do some more fun spots, with challenges. Her first idea was “The Hot Sauce Challenge”. Basically, eat a spoon of really hot sauce and record the funny reaction. The trouble with that though, it’s not much fun.

One of my favourite definitions of games revolves around deliberately putting obstacles n the way of tasks. The basic idea of eating hot sauce is very simple. However, if you add an obstacle, say an element of randomness, you start to form a game.

In the end we set up a sort of Russian roulette game. Six identical spoons of sauce, one with the hot sauce added. Then between us we each drew a number out of a hat eating the contents of the spoon that corresponded with the number. This way there was tension, entertainment and an element of extra risk. Adding one simple obstacle, randomness, we created a much more entertaining experience for us and, we hope, her viewers.

It doesn’t always have to be complicated this Gamification malarkey!

Let me know in the comments what really simple examples of gamification you have created?

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Also published on Medium.