#GameMechanics – Objectives category

#GameMechanics – Objectives category

Objectives Category #gamemechanics

A series of things to be done. Progress is achieved by completing each task.

 

Part of the Narrative Dynamic is the Objectives Category. Here you can just list a series of things to do. No story or tale to be told. The goal is clear and achievable just by finishing each of those tasks in the list.

No, I never said in order. Having a Narrative by objectives has NOTHING to do with how you do it. Unless told otherwise, order is not required.

Yes… I know… not much to explain about a list right? However you can decide if it’s public or not. You can decide how many of those things are required to progress. You can use separate sets of lists: Finish ONE task of each color or type or category.

Creating lists in gamification is never dull. It’s the EASIEST way to define your narrative, making sure that whenever a player has finished all items on the list, they will have achieved the goal.

NOW we are talking about ORDER. Requirements are not only used in a list. They may be a series of challenges that aren’t part of ANY list at all but, also a set of items to be collected or a certain amount of money before buying a ticket.

Having defined that your OBJECTIVES will be fulfilled in a specific order is one thing and ask for some things to get something is another. BOTH of these are Requirements, however the use is very different.

They say nothing joins people together more than a common threat right? It’s actually pretty powerful in terms of motivation.

Enemies can come in many shapes and sizes. It’s not the classic guy from James Bond. Think of the difference between team rocket in Pokemon and Majin Buu from Dragon Ball Z. If those are bad examples you can always think of the difference between the orcs and Sauron in the lor of the ring. What? Still lost? Ok… There’s the GODFATHER and his UNDERLINGS.

All of these are enemies, however the level of threat each proposes is completey different. In games you don’t start fighting the big boss, you walk your way up the hill taking on smaller foes.

You can choose whatever type of enemy your players fancy. You can even create one to antagonize each player type.

Bernardo Letayf

Bernardo Letayf

M.B.O. (Mind Behind the Operation)

6th position in the Gamification Gurus Power 100!

Gamification Keynote Speaker & the mind behind the operation @bluerabbit, a gamification platform for education.

Developed three frameworks to teach/learn how to create gamification systems and build gamified content

Declared a world wide war on grades.

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6 + 8 =

#Gamemechanics – Story Category

#Gamemechanics – Story Category

Story Category #gamemechanics

A story that guides your players. They progress following a specific role.

In our framework, we decided to divide all six game dynamics into pairs. All mechanics are related more to some dynamics than others. This, as always, is not absolute, it’s a guide to help you build your systems.

Narrative gives purpose to the players, and such purpose can be easily seen by either a Story or an Objective.

It’s not the same to tell a story to your players and have them play a specific role in a system than just telling them what’s expected from them to be done.

Remember you can combine anything as you wish. Now, let’s get into the mechanics for the STORY category.

 

How about we go out and change the world?

It has to do a lot with Core Drive 1 Epic Meaning and calling from the Octalysis framework. However, @yukaichou uses it more from a behavioral/motivational point of view.

The objective as a MECHANIC is to define the players’ WIN STATE by becoming something bigger than themselves. If you want to use the EPIC MEANING, make sure that when the game ends, the players have achieved such meaning or all actions correspond to something relevant.

Getting a grade for doing something isn’t epic but, helping others get a better grade based on your input can be. Teaching young kids, building houses for no money, winning a contest that requires a lot of effort or validation from 10,000 people.

Who would you like to become in the end?

Avatars aren’t those big blue guys nor a picture where you can put a special hat you just bought in the store. Avatars are images of greatness where you project yourself.

IF, that image is projected by a cartoon where you can customize their clothes or hair color, that’s great. However, not all players have fun doing this.

Most of the time, adding custom stuff to a character is appreciated by Easy-Fun lovers. If most of your players don’t like that, then use the AVATAR mechanic as an Alter-ego for them to believe.

 

Once upon a time…

YES! Who doesn’t love a good story? Writing one to describe the action of your players is an amazing mechanic that will guide them through rain and snow.

I may not be the best writer but, having my students believing they were actually working for an agency and developing products others in the school would need was actually empowering.

Players love to have a role. Imagine if you connect that role to an amazing story and they end up solving problems they didn’t believe existed. A STORYLINE can help your players always know which way to go and what they should expect all outcomes to be. It will help you see the flow in their progress without a blink of the eyes.

Bernardo Letayf

Bernardo Letayf

M.B.O. (Mind Behind the Operation)

6th position in the Gamification Gurus Power 100!

Gamification Keynote Speaker & the mind behind the operation @bluerabbit, a gamification platform for education.

Developed three frameworks to teach/learn how to create gamification systems and build gamified content

Declared a world wide war on grades.

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5 + 9 =

#GameDynamics – Boundaries

#GameDynamics – Boundaries

Boundaries #gamedynamics

Where does it start and when does it end?

So, what’s the limit?

It’s fair to say the game ends when someone wins. That could be your limit in terms of time but, you must define where can they play.

Yes, you can also say “anywhere” but, what’s the game about?

There is absolutely no game that has no boundaries. If you don’t limit the game in terms of place and time, it’s not a game, it’s just play.

But, what about Pokemon Go? Isn’t that a game you can play LITERALLY anywhere?

NOPE. You can’t play it unless you have your cellphone/mobile device with you. Starting to see the difference? The boundaries of a supposedly limitless game are defined by the tools you have to use.

The boundaries of time are also important. As “infinite” as it seems, Pokemon Go actually is a connection of many very short battles. This way, you play for a couple of hours and then go back to your life. In a gamified system you MUST think exactly like that. You get into the system, interact for a while with it, define your goals, check your progression and REST.

Think of a soccer match. If it didn’t have boundaries of space. You could keep kicking the ball all the way to the ocean… seems a bit off right? And in terms of time? How long can the players actually play without falling to the ground completely spent?

Defining the boundaries of space not only depend on the physical space but also on the tools you need to interact (like facebook)

Defining your boundaries of time not only depend on how long will it take the players to get to the Win State but, the amount of actual time they can play through each attempt.

Perhaps when we get to the definition of this game mechanics we can see even more examples.

Upcoming, Game Mechanics, the 12 categories.

Bernardo Letayf

Bernardo Letayf

M.B.O. (Mind Behind the Operation)

6th position in the Gamification Gurus Power 100!

Gamification Keynote Speaker & the mind behind the operation @bluerabbit, a gamification platform for education.

Developed three frameworks to teach/learn how to create gamification systems and build gamified content

Declared a world wide war on grades.

<a class="twitter-timeline" data-height="400" href="https://twitter.com/bletayf">Tweets by Bernardo Letayf</a> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

#GameDynamics – Relationships

#GameDynamics – Relationships

Relationships #gamedynamics

How do the players play?

How can the players interact with the system and what is their relationship with other players?

Another way to see this is answering how the players connect to each other and to the system.

Let’s say you give them points. What are the points used for? Can they spend them like money or can they use them to increase their abilities to upgrade themselves and tackle even bigger challenges?

Yes it starts to sound a bit redundant but, at this point, you want to define what the players can do with everything they have built and worked so hard for.

Can they hire other players to make theirs paths easier? Can they hire them to get help? Are they part of a guild?

I divided this Dynamic into Solo and Team relationships. Solo defines mechanics that the player uses to define himself within the system (like defining their rating as a hunter or a researcher) while the team relationships are about who they are working with (like building guilds or alliances).

What does that player level actually represents? Imagine you give 4 different paths. The Win State is defined by mastering two of those paths. The level of the player represents his progress in those paths, however, they can only achieve the master level by mentoring lower level players. At this point, your relationship dynamic should say something like: Players must be mentors of lower levels when they get to X level.

Notice how one thing is saying they are part of a guild and ANOTHER is defining HOW the players play with the system and between themselves. Regardless of the guild you are into, the players must GROW both ways, as an individual and as part of something bigger.

Upcoming, the last dynamic: Boundaries

Bernardo Letayf

Bernardo Letayf

M.B.O. (Mind Behind the Operation)

6th position in the Gamification Gurus Power 100!

Gamification Keynote Speaker & the mind behind the operation @bluerabbit, a gamification platform for education.

Developed three frameworks to teach/learn how to create gamification systems and build gamified content

Declared a world wide war on grades.

<a class="twitter-timeline" data-height="400" href="https://twitter.com/bletayf">Tweets by Bernardo Letayf</a> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

#GameDynamics – Progression

#GameDynamics – Progression

Progression #gamedynamics

Are the players moving towards the goal or not?


You just got one gazillion points in your wallet! Are they good for something? Is it good to have that many? Is the goal of the game getting as many or as few points as possible?

The progression is the way for the players to know where they stand at any given moment. When a soccer player looks to the score board, they know if they are winning or losing based on a simple number and just a little bit of math.

When you define your progression you have to make sure there is a clear mechanic keeping track of it and a perfect order the players which way is north.

Let’s say in our example, getting a gazillion points (GP) is good but the goal of the game is to get 8GP You know you have 7 GP to go, you realize its not even half time and you see there are still plenty of opportunities for you to build upon those points. We know, we are moving TOWARDS the goal.

Now, in terms of categories, I divided progression into Alternative and Linear. In a Linear progression you have to go in  order from activity to activity to progress, so to reach goal 8 you need to finish tasks 1 through 7 first. However, in alternative progression you don’t have to follow a set of objectives in order, you just finish them in any given order according to your liking. You don’t have to reach goal 8 because they aren’t in order, but you have to complete 8 tasks to finish.

Other ways to see these is offering the players multiple paths. You will become either a doctor or a web designer but it’s really hard to become both, however if the goal is to achieve a degree in something, it doesn’t matter which way you go. Now, you can have systems that offer multiple choices (like paths) but, once in the path, you have to follow a linear progression to get to the goal and can’t change that road until a certain point in the system.

A cool idea is to tie each path to certain skills so the players will actually require such to move forward and overcome the challenge.

On our next post, we will check how players interact with the system: The Relationship dynamic

 

 

Bernardo Letayf

Bernardo Letayf

M.B.O. (Mind Behind the Operation)

6th position in the Gamification Gurus Power 100!

Gamification Keynote Speaker & the mind behind the operation @bluerabbit, a gamification platform for education.

Developed three frameworks to teach/learn how to create gamification systems and build gamified content

Declared a world wide war on grades.

<a class="twitter-timeline" data-height="400" href="https://twitter.com/bletayf">Tweets by Bernardo Letayf</a> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>