

Gamified Life: Habits Meets SNES - lefnire
http://kck.st/XoA3Yg

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bromagosa
Maybe I missed the point, but isn't it too easy to cheat here? I could add 40
fake ToDos each day and mark them as done. No need for them to be fake
actually... I could just add eat, breathe, walk, think, work, exist, etc.

I know the point of motivation boosters is that you won't cheat because you
want to improve yourself, but there are users who will cheat and that'll make
the level system bogus. The most motivated users who do their homework and
never cheat will lose in front of the least motivated users who never do their
homework and cheat.

Am I wrong?

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lefnire
Two things. (1) I plan to mitigate cheating where possible, for example
hindering rapid-click. (2) Some players will play solo (in which you'd just be
cheating yourself), and others will play in parties. I'm going to make party-
building "manual", almost like a LAN party - you actually enter their user
ids, and you can only have 5. No "auto-select from facebook". This way, you'll
only choose close friends. The goal is for the party system to be an
accountability partnership, and biggest-loser challenges amongst friends don't
cheat on their weight checkins. So yes you can cheat, but due to the nature of
the application I'm not worried about people _actually_ cheating. (There won't
be any global high score)

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bromagosa
Thanks for the explanation, those look like good solutions.

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arscan
Is there an underlying story / quest that your little guy progresses through
as he gets stronger? I always thought that the story component is what helped
make those old rpg's great. Obviously it would defeat the purpose if you spent
too much time in the game vs. actually getting real life stuff done. But I
think there can be a good balance where the "grinding" aspects of the rpg are
replaced with productive life activities.

I think I would rather fund that development activity than an android front
end.

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lefnire
possibility, I'll bounce that around & keep it on my mind grapes

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iuguy
Hasn't this already been done with Epic Win[1]?

Is anyone able to explain the differences between the two beyond cosmetics?

[1] - <http://www.rexbox.co.uk/epicwin/>

~~~
lefnire
EW is badge-based, and iPhone only. This will be traditional SNES-style,
highly social, and web first - then cross-device mobile.

In all honesty, I didn't know about EW when I built this. When I saw EW after
finishing the website, I thought "God damn it! Effing spot on, too" and walked
home dejected. But their Android app has been long in the works, there won't
be web, and in all honesty - I want something REALLY rpg. My goal with Habit
is to push as many possible traditional RPG features into the app, starting
with a 5-person party system, healing and all (see <http://goo.gl/TvPTg>)

~~~
TeMPOraL
-1 for web-based interface. What I want is to use it off-line (why, oh why, do I need to have Internet everywhere for everything?) and have off-line access to data (e.g. to plot myself something for fun or insight).

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lefnire
well web app is already built, and the Kickstarter's for native mobile app. no
need to use the web app if you don't want to.

But the reason I chose web first is (1) easy access to all platforms, (2) plug
into web services and hooks. Eg, there's the Chrome extension
(<http://goo.gl/gze94>) where you lose HP for surfing reddit, facebook, etc.
Pomodoro plugin, and future integration with Pivotal, Asana, etc. Integration
is easier on the web.

