we often do things we don't like so why not make them fun imagine life as a game filled with rewarding mechanisms that drive us to take action effortlessly finding joy even in the boring tasks games have ways to grow, quests to complete and rewards to earn, life does too question how do we run our lives like a game Yu Kai Chou, author of Actionable Gamification revealed the answers with something called the Octalysis Framework this concept outlines 8 core drives of gameification that can make our lives more engaging now let's create a life RPG based on
these 8 core drives that track our progress and build habits of course powered by Notion in this game will include things from the Octalysis Framework like development, scarcity, avoidance social influence, unpredictability but first we need the epic meaning and calling it sets the fundamental framework and direction for the game of life a life without clear goals is like being lost is like being lost without a map empty characterizations and unclear meanings can lead to a lack of a sense of mission for the player so let me think about how this should be presented in the
game I'll be back soon let me just add it to the pending list the key to this core drive is responsibility and autonomy in games we know the character is ours so we take the initiative to improve their skills and find better equipment for them this process is autonomous no one tells us to do it but we still enjoy it it's because we feel attached to the characters we create we feel responsible for them we want them to get better so they can face stronger enemies the author of the book says that if a person
spends a lot of time customizing their profile or avatar they will naturally feel a stronger sense of ownership over it so we're going to design a character feature that lets players invest in their characters and see themselves in them feel a sense of responsibility for this character enjoying the happiness and motivation that comes with the character leveling up here we can see character information level, coin held, health point goal completion rate, and level up progress bar in the game we complete quests to gain experience and equipment this drive to develop the character's level enhance their
skills this is where Skill Tree comes in a well designed skill tree gives players a sense of growth characters just need to complete specific growth tasks to enhance their skills developing good habits is an essential part of personal growth that's why we need to design a sensible habit forming mechanism let's make it so when our character practices good habits they earn experience points and rewards of course we can decide how much experience is given adjusting the reward based on the difficulty of maintaining the good habit and for now let's put bad habits aside we will
come back to it later next up we need a task manager after some research I think the PARA method might be a great fit for the system PARA stands for projects, areas resources and archives area is seen as a long term responsibility you want to manage which perfectly aligns with my skill tree system just like a skill tree you need to nurture your financial and writing skills over time a project can be thought of as the work you are doing under a certain area and there are many more tasks under one project for example if
your project is learning stock investment it falls under the finance area this project might include several tasks like taking an online course finishing an investment book and researching investment platforms in the game a project is seen as a stage and tasks are seen as quests under that stage I can set how many coins and experience points each project will grant the system automatically calculates these points and coins and distributes them evenly across all tasks under the project the book mentions that people need to find various creative combinations to tackle a problem In games when we
can't defeat a boss we try everything possible to overcome it we experiment with different strategies skill combos and even try to exploit bugs to beat the game It's crucial to see the results of our creativity and receive immediate feedback I picked up on a key idea here creative results and timely feedback to shorten the feedback loop I need to visualize numerical growth after completing specific habits or tasks this acts like an automated diary logging what you've done and what tasks you've completed every minute I don't know if you agree but I believe humans can easily
become addicted to seeing numbers grow if you've ever managed a social media platform you'll know what I mean but numbers without meaning can leave us feeling empty we must give these numbers value and significance this is a drive to get what you want but can't the book introduces an interesting concept called appointment dynamics In the game for a rare piece of equipment that we can't buy right now We'll try to grind in dungeons save up coins and then buy it from the market no one tells us to do this it comes from our own drive
and autonomy In games this is represented by loot drops mission rewards and market so I created a marketplace in LiFE RPG I earn coins by completing tasks and goals to get rewards and go to the market to add items to the shopping cart pay for the item and view the payment history I can buy things even if I don't have money uh let's add that to the pending list Rewards mean there are also punishments games are addictive because they tap into our fear of loss in games if you don't log in for a day you
might miss out on certain rewards dying might mean losing experience points coins or even the characters you have worked hard to build this core drive is based on the desire to avoid negative outcomes to align with this core drive I have designed three rules I need to sign into the system every day to check in the good habits if I performed a good habit yesterday but forgot to check in I will need to buy a catch up pass in the black market remember the bad habits we put on the pending list I see overcoming bad
habits as a battle where I must fight and eliminate my bad habits when I indulge in a bad habit it means I've lost the battle resulting in a loss of health points and characters will die if they have zero health points if characters could just come back to life without any consequences nobody would care so I've designed a death penalty after dying I lose all my coins levels and experience points Pressing the respawn means the character has to start over wait a minute this punishment might not be severe enough I need to set a stricter
penalty for myself after dying the player which is me must execute a real world penalty for the character for example wearing women's clothes and posting it on my Twitter or follow LiFE RPG on Product Hunt great games have a strong social aspect we enjoy doing things together with others like a group and it's turning even the most boring tasks into something fun we need a group of people to share our achievements and to talk about our struggles but it's not just about companionship and sharing there's also competition and envy involved when you see a friend
mastering a skill or owning a rare item it motivates you to reach the same level so I wanted to create a community but it is not possible to do this with Notion I thought about creating a game forum but that wouldn't integrate with the game itself I wanted this community to be built into the game not just a separate website I spent an entire afternoon thinking about it and I really did it! I created a built in chat room in Notion players can share their progress what goals they've achieved what skills they have their daily
life and meet new friends now I have perfected a game to manage my life and I plan to launch it on Product Hunt next month hold up wait a minute remember the pending list we talked about earlier I just added a new item to it let's tackle the first issue what is Epic Meaning and Callings it's different for everyone and I need to find my own just as you need to find yours to better outline my Epic Meanings and Callings I created a vision board next up buying things without money In Notion I can't stop
you from clicking the buy button I can only pop up a warning but I do not think that's enough to curb user behavior how about an overdraft penalty if your account goes into the negatives each week you'll lose health points equivalent to your negative coin balance and now the most important issue how can I make it more user friendly the database is a mess and it would be a hassle for users to enter their character information one by one I need to build a "create an account" page to make it easier for users to start
using the system your life your rules I can't set the life rules for you I need to make a "settings" page where users can set up their own skill trees and experience point rates lastly if you remember the Octalysis Framework you'll notice that our game design is missing an element unpredictability and curiosity in games we delight in exploring maps and mechanics fueled by our curiosity and the element of unpredictability this is also a key element that drives our autonomy but I can't figure out how to integrate this element into the game I need your ideas
this project has now entered the beta phase and you can get the LiFE RPG beta version for free in the video description below LiFE RPG is also featured on Product Hunt if you're interested click notify me you can also reach out to me on Twitter with more valuable ideas thank you and stay tuned
