Gamification

Speaking at Gamification Europe 2017

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Gamificationeurope2017logo 1 Speaking at Gamification Europe 2017

For those of you who are interested in gamification events and live in the UK or indeed Europe, November the 278h-29th should be pretty exciting for you. The first edition of Gamification Europe is happening in Brighton and the line-up is looking excellent! You will get to hear from the likes of Marigo Ruftopolous, Michael Wu, An Coppens and of course me!

If you want to attend the conference, you can register at the Gamification Europe website. Use the code GE25AM to get a 25% discount. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/gamification-europe-registration-38868140655 Read More ...

Play Games, Enjoy Games and be a Better Gamification Designer

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Video game 2154473 Play Games Enjoy Games and be a Better Gamification Designer

Over the year my opinion on the need to love games to be a good gamification designer has fluctuated. In the early days, I was more flexible on the idea. It was all about psychology in a nearly pure form, understand behaviour and use that understanding to encourage the behaviours that you want. The “game” aspect was less important as gamification is not making games!

However, as I work on more and more projects it becomes clear that this is rubbish. Anything beyond the most simple of applications of gamification needs a solid understanding of games. It is not necessary to be a games designer as such, but having a good idea of what makes games work is an essential. If I was not a gamer, I would not be able to do my job at this level! I would have no inspiration for a start. After that, I would have no idea what worked and why. Finally, I would not have the love of play that is so desperately needed in good gamification implementations. Read More ...

What You Want vs What You Need

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Jujitsu What You Want vs What You Need

My JuJitsu instructor always used to say,

“I’ll teach you what you need, not what you want”

This always struck me as a fabulous way to look at teaching in general and one that I used myself as a JuJitsu instructor, mentor and everything else I have done that involved passing information to others.

Getting what you want is very rarely as important as getting what you need. In fact, getting what you need more often that not allows you to then earn what you want. In martial arts, like most things, you need the foundations, the boring things. The form work, the katas, the hours and hours of repetitive grind. The same is true in games. You need to get the basics before you can do the interesting things. You may not want to do them, the tutorial level is often not the most exciting, but you need them to be able to then go on and do what you want to do in the rest of the game. Read More ...

Learning From Games: Candy Crush and Soda Saga

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Soda Saga Learning From Games Candy Crush and Soda Saga

Candy Crush Saga from King games is one of the worlds most played games, boasting 93 million daily players at one point! I have always avoided it, but my wife has been into it for years. Finally, when she was explaining a level on the spin-off game Soda Saga, I cracked and downloaded it.

For those that don’t know, Candy Crush and Soda Saga are a genre of puzzle game called “Match 3”, first popularised by Bejewelled (though Shariki was actually the first). The basic concept sees you start with a board full of colourful tokens and you must swap two around that are next to each other to form rows of three.  Create a row of three and they disappear, moving all of the other tokens around. Read More ...

Risk and Reward in Gamification

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Risk and Reward Risk and Reward in Gamification

Recently I have been playing a game called Punch, Punch, Kick, Punch (PPKP). It is a simple mobile game that only requires 2 buttons to play. One is kick, one is punch. As you play, you have to learn how to time the use of these buttons and the combinations that are most effective against certain foes. The reason I mention it is because it has one of the simplest examples of risk and reward in a game I have seen for a while.

What is risk and reward I hear you cry.. or maybe not, but I’ll explain anyway. It is the idea that if the more you are willing to risk, the higher the reward might be. For instance, the more lotto tickets you buy, the more chance you have of winning – but it costs more, the risk is higher as you have spent more. Read More ...