What follows is a little bit of fun, but one that may help you take another look at how you are planning your user journey in gamified systems. In storytelling and therefore in games there is a structure that is well known and well used called the Hero’s Journey or Monomyth. It was first described by Joseph Campbell in 1949 to show how many myths all followed a very similar structure. In the modern world, it can be seen in stories such as Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings. It can be seen in video games as well, one example being the Zelda games.
Gaming
Gamify your drive home
One of the day to day activities that I gamify in my life, is driving. More specifically, driving economically. Best of all, you don’t need to have some expensive gamified car (like the leaf) or any apps.
My car, like most now, has an on-board computer. I have this set to always show me my current miles per gallon (MPG). The game that I play with myself revolves around keeping the MPG number as high as possible. I do this by basically driving sensibly. Not having the air-con on all the time, being in the right gear etc. It is a very simple bit of gamification that revolves around two basic mechanics. Feedback and reward.
Narrative, story and gamification
Whenever I speak to people in the circles within which I hang out, one of the things I keep hearing is story and narrative. “You have to tell your story”, “What is the narrative?”, what is the companies story”. To be honest it drives me a little nuts, but that’s by the by. The fact is, these are important things to consider. One of the things that has got me thinking, is what is the difference between story and narrative?
Story seems to have quite a few definitions. According to the Oxford dictionary it is:
Nabu Smartband from Razer
I don’t often post press releases here, but this one excites me! Razer is a company that has produced gaming peripherals for years now. Used by pros and casual gamers alike, they always produce distinctive and interesting kit.
So when they announced they were going to release a fitness like band, I had to find out more!
It turns out they have made a competitor product to the likes of FitBit (which I use) and Nike Fuel Band (which I can’t afford!!). Not only does it look really cool, it has a boat load of features. Rather than just a fitness tracker, it is a full features smart watch, showing you incoming calls and notifications. It is a fitness tracker, with location awareness and all sorts iof other bio data. Finally it is social, with band to band communications.
Game Thinking – Breaking it Down
Ever since I first started considering Game Thinking, I have been trying to come up with a way to break down all of the parts that make it up. The first attempt was my article about the differences between serious games and gamification. This gave me a basic outline of the 4 areas I considered to make up Game Thinking.
Since then, I have been thinking about this a lot. I have been trying to break it down even further. The next step was my article on the term serious games. This broke serious games up into 4 basic types. Teaching Games, Simulations, Meaningful games and Purposeful games.