Now, before you get excited – this is nothing to do with chocolate!
Easter eggs in this case refer to hidden surprises and extras (just like an Easter egg hunt when you were a kid). They are aimed at people who like to explore (Free Spirits) as they reward people for just looking around and digging a little deeper than some others.
In games (and actually even in serious software like Office), Easter eggs have been around for a really long time.
An Easter Egg doesn’t have to be hard to get too, Disney’s Aladdin had a lovely nod to Mickey Mouse for the more eagle eyed amongst its players.
Aladdin Mickey
Some games, like Duke Nukem 3D had little digs at other games if you looked around. For instance, below we see the fate of the marine from Doom. This kind of Easter Egg just requires you to be a little more inquisitive.
Fate of the Marine
Actually, Duke had loads of them – check out this reference to the Simpsons!
Homer’s Desk in Duke Nukem
Activision’s Black Ops II had a playable version of the classic Pit Fall. Accessing this required a bit more effort as you had to do certain things in the game first.
Call of Pit Fall
In gamification we can make use of Easter Eggs as well. Hell if software giants Microsoft used to include them in Office, you can include them in your solutions!
“Word97pinball” by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Word97pinball.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Word97pinball.jpg
The trick is to make them fun to find and make the value of the Easter Egg or the smile factor relative to the amount of effort! If you require someone to dig through your source code to find a secret page (for instance…), make sure there is some level of reward for doing it!
It does not have to be that complex though, it could just be a funny reference that only the most observant will see. It could be that you send people on a short treasure hunt to find things. It won’t be for everyone, but if you spend a bit of time and effort on them – Free Spirits will be very grateful to you and you may just raise a smile or two!
Fantasy is not the sort of thing that most companies would think of first when they wanted to motivate and engage employees. It sounds a little too un-worky.
If I have learned anything over the years though, fantasy is essential if you want people to break out of standard ways of thinking. Fantasy is a safe place for peoples minds to dream, create and explore ideas. It is a place where they can make mistakes without fear of punishments, where they can be someone else who is potentially braver or totally different from themselves. Great innovations can come from daydreams, imagine the power you could harness by facilitating this mentality!
The thing is, fantasy doesn’t have to mean elves and orcs, it just means something that is not real and if possible has slightly different rules to reality.
So for instance, take data entry. Not the most exciting of jobs (I spent a long few weeks doing that as a temp back in the day), but it is essential that it is done fast and accurately. The question is, how do you train someone to do this in a way that is potentially enjoyable? Add a little fantasy!
One of my favourite examples that relates is Typing of the Dead from Sega, published around 2000. It was a based on the arcade light gun shooter House of the Dead 2, but rather than shooting enemies, you had to type words and phrases as they appeared on the screen. As you got further into the game, the words and phrases got harder and you had to be quick and accurate to survive. As fun as the game was, what you were actually doing was learning to touch type, but rather than simply being congratulated by Mavis Beacon, you survived zombies! A bit like with Zombies Run!, the threat of a zombie munching on your nuts is pretty motivational!
Typing of the Dead
The same approach could be given to a great deal of training, where people are put into a safe virtual environment. Here failure is okay, but success is rewarded with progression.
Applying fantasy elements is tricky and you have to be sympathetic to the potential users. Not everyone wants to find their HR tools suddenly themed like a werewolf horror flick, but some might! So think about the users, the context and why you are doing what you are doing. The fantasy only works if there is a magic circle, a safe boundary between the fantasy and reality.
Breaking from reality from time to time is a good thing, just make sure that reality is rewarding enough for your users that they want to return to it!
After a few more responses, I have realised I missed off Learning as a type of fun!!!
As many of you will have seen by now, I am running a short survey on what people find fun. So far I have had 155 results, for which I am truly grateful! Of course, I need more – so tell your friends, I am missing any answers at all from the 17 or younger age group!
However, I thought it would be fun to share some of the findings so far, show those of you that have answered so far that there is something happening with your answers. I have been categorising the answers into various types of fun, creating new types as I find answers that don’t fit into those I already have. So far this has given me 21 types of fun. Part of this process is to get your feedback on the types I have so far – are they all separate for example, or can I group a few. Also, can I group them generally beyond what I have already. I really need your feedback to help this process!
But, until there, here is what I have so far! (updated 27/08/2014)
Type
%
Description
Challenge
15.8%
Over coming obstacles. Attaining a sense of achievement.
Fellowship
12.6%
Relatedness. Being with others.
Problem solving
8.9%
Puzzles, use of problem solving (specifically) to over come challenges.
Exploration
8.3%
Deliberately looking around and testing the boundaries.
Sensation
6.7%
Joy in physical sensation. Smell, activity, sport, touch etc.
Discovery
6.0%
Finding new or interesting things, deliberately or not.
Creativity
5.5%
Building, inventing, creating new things (music, art etc)
Surprise
5.0%
The joy of the unexpected.
Competition
4.6%
You vs. the world.
Fantasy
4.4%
Make believe
Learning
3.2%
Learning new things, mastery.
Collaboration
3.2%
Working with others on a common goal.
Narrative
3.0%
Stories and plot lines.
Family
2.8%
Joy from your relatives – not that same as fellowship.
Humour
2.5%
Different for everyone, but jokes, funny stories and situations.
Altruism
2.1%
Selfless acts, sense of some kind of greater purpose.
Progression
2.1%
The feeling that what you are doing is leading to something.
Immersion
1.1%
Believing in the fantasy world totally and losing yourself to it.
Curiosity
1.1%
Wanting to know what is in the box, what happens next, what is around the corner.
Flow
0.9%
As described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, losing your sense of self in an activity
Schadenfreude
0.2%
Pleasure in the suffering of others.
There are a few there that look like they may be the same, but I have also split them in my mind between facilitated experiences and internal. So the joy of creativity is intrinsic – you don’t need external guidance or facilitation. However, something like narrative needs to be created and facilitated extrinsically.
Fun Types Updated 27/08/2014
Challenge comes up a lot as something you guys find fun as does fellowship. This does not surprise me though, Relatedness and Achievement! Things related to Autonomy are also high up, such as exploration. Altruism is low scoring, but other ideas related to greater Purpose are in there, but lower than I might expect.
If nothing else, it shows that defining fun is really REALLY hard! People find so many things in so many combinations fun. Just because you find it fun, doesn’t mean others will. You have a good shot if you add challenge though it seems.
As I say, this is just the first run at the results and I hope to collect a lot more data over the coming months. I am sure some of the ideas will change!! Please comment and add ideas though and if you have not done so yet – take the survey!. Oh, one thing to note. No one there has said they enjoy collecting points and badges 😉
Quick note. The thickness of the circles just shows how often the type has appeared in the survey – does not relate to importance.
When I first started to describe Game Thinking, I talked about gameful design or game inspired design. Part of me was always split about what I really meant. In my mind, these ideas were based on user interface more than anything. So creating menu systems that mirrored ideas seen in games, or creating slightly more fun look and feel.
It wasn’t until I was messing around with the Snapchat interface that I realised what I was really thinking about – playful design. Design ideas that add to the pleasure of using something whilst not necessarily altering the functionality. The example that Snapchat gave me was something I discovered just by playing with the interface. If you go to your chat stream and slide up, the image at the bottom becomes an animation. At the moment it is of the Snapchat ghosts playing football.
Not much going on
Game on
Gooooaaal!
There is no need to do this, it is just a bit of fun. It is a playful reward for exploring and messing with the interface and one that I totally appreciate!
Reward your users for curiosity and exploration or just playing, it may not directly relate to what you want them doing, but it does endear them to the product!
