Ok, first of all, I DIDN’T write the article, I’m just posting this short review as a reference. It’s so good, any #gamification designer must read and be aware of these flaws before building ANYTHING!

Full Article: https://www.polygon.com/2017/9/8/16263050/game-design-magic-tricks

Author Blog Profile: https://www.polygon.com/users/Gaohmee

The author touches neuroscience briefly to explain how the chemicals in our brain work, she even quotes:

You are a deeply flawed, irrational being who is terrible at truly understanding chance, distance, time and numbers. Don’t feel bad, everyone else on the planet is in the same boat.

She explains various #gamemechanics such as ACCOMPLISHMENT, BONDING, FAKING IT, FAIRNESS and MULTIPLAYER. The greatest part of it is that she is not the one explaining and giving examples, great game designers from fantastic killer games are.

Stop messing around and click here to read it. You can thank her later.

I’ll end up pulling a short cv of her

Jennifer Scheurle is an award-winning, world-traveling game designer and speaker with six years of industry experience. She is most known for her work on Earthlight, a game created in collaboration with NASA as well as Objects in Space, which is to be released in 2018.

An amazing article for sure. Please read!! 😀

Yes, I know… more crazy stuff?  Just a deeper analysis and an explanation on where this is taking my frameworks 🙂

Now, you can download the image on the left and give it a try.

The idea here is to start some combinations on the player types. Not that it will take us anywhere in terms of a perfect definition of them and to develop a new theory around it. What I was doing (and discussed with Andrzej) is that this can grant you a deeper understanding on how players will behave through their gameplay.

Someone who wants to be a specialist might be craving for Autonomy and Mastery. A leader might seek Purpose and Relatedness.

This way you can plan ahead in your #gamification design a bit more focused on what your audience wants. Trying not to preconfigure things too much but to choose the game mechanics that best apply to the situation.

According to this validation there are mechanics directly connected to each player type in the HEXAD. Making a cross between two or more player types will show a larger number of options.

What I’m trying to achieve is to generate a system that will allow you to define how many RAMP points each mechanic gives to your system in each core concept so you deploy a more accurate solution.

In the end, I know it’s not possible to have it 100% accurate, but if we manage to deliver a more quantitative approach it will prove to help build better #gamification systems than ever before.

Imagine building your system with a set of cards that look like Magic: The Gathering, so much fun and so precise you can just focus on the creative part a lot more.

Ok, So what’s with this image:

I was talking with #gamification guru Roman Racwitz during his last visit to Mexico about how I believe that Purpose is the most important component in RAMP. He then countered by saying that Mastery is better.

In the end we both agreed that all 4 core elements are important, but our preference is way towards both Mastery and Purpose. However it got me thinking that Mastery and purpose feed each other constantly. And that’s what the image above is about.

According to the HEXAD, each player type is related more to a component of RAMP, however the more I use them this proves a bit off (not really wrong but more like weird)

Achievers have a clear relationship with Mastery, Free-spirits with Autonomy and Socialisers with Relatedness. The trick lies in the Philantropist and a post by Andrzej on his website. After discussing things with @RomanRackwitz and the misconceptions I started walking a dark path. What if we release the player types from the RAMP elements? 

I know right? Sacrilegeous!

Before I burn, let me say a couple of things. All player types are motivated by all four RAMP components, not just one specifically. If we release the HEXAD from RAMP, then the philantropist, the socialiser, the free spirit and the achiever get their intrinsic motivation from more than only ONE core concept and this opens a path for many things to come.

It’s just an idea, however, I like to think we can take the player types to an infinite number of combinations that allow us to understand the players in more depth than before.

I believe that even if the trend in #gamification says that an achiever will look for mastery over altruistic purpose, what if the achiever wants to be a master in helping others? What if the socialiser wants to help people be more independent? 

Anyhow, I’d lobe to hear from you guys! 😀