
HabitRpg: A habit building app that treats your life like a game - tellarin
https://habitrpg.com/static/front
======
hf
This interface paradigm has, I believe, become known as _gamification_ ; an
example from another domain, language learning, would be Duolingo[0].

Engaging as such applications are with their stimulus of powerful primordial
triggers, they all too often transport not just a game's gratifying aspects
into the problem domain (todo lists, in this case), but also the gaming
mindset, resulting in terribly linear interfaces and data structures.

I do believe that even a serious todo list application, or, as it were,
language learning platform, would benefit from similiarly engaging elements,
effective by virtue of our cerebral heritage.

Nevertheless, I have yet to see a successful marriage.

A gamified Emacs Org-mode[1], perhaps?

[0] An ingenious platform that ostensibly allows anyone to learn a language by
doing bite-sized exercises and translating sentences, while effectively
training the proprietary Duolingo translation engine. See
[http://duolingo.com](http://duolingo.com)

[1] [http://orgmode.org/](http://orgmode.org/)

~~~
npsimons
My first response to the article title was "I've already gamified my habits -
I use org-mode". Trying to check off as many yellows (and reds!) every day as
possible, not-breaking-the-chain by continuing the green line. It's sad, but
it does give me a warm fuzzy feeling.

Of course, to each his own; many can't understand how anyone could stand to
play nethack, which is about the level of "gamification" of org-mode
currently.

~~~
lepht
[https://github.com/ryjm/habitrpg.el](https://github.com/ryjm/habitrpg.el)

------
will_lam
Looks like it's missing a bunch of retention hooks to bring users back to
continually engage and check int. Whether it's email reminders, notifications
etc. I created an account 2 weeks ago, only remembered about HabitRPG now
after checking out HN.

------
MBlume
I'll second RazvanPanda, this has been lifechanging for me. I tend to have a
lot of trouble with ADLs (activities of daily living) and this really helps me
keep on top of them. Trivial example: I've been _consistently_ flossing
nightly for a month and a half now.

------
RazvanPanda
I highly recommend this, it changed my life, well, at least one of the three
lives I still have left
[http://i.imgur.com/XN6z8US.png](http://i.imgur.com/XN6z8US.png)

------
Emouri
It's also open source and available on github
[https://github.com/HabitRPG](https://github.com/HabitRPG)

The girlfriend and I have been trying it out the last week or so, it's a
pretty good way to keep the flat tidy it seems.

------
quaffapint
I find the UX not quite there.

For example, it doesn't let me stay logged in (no remember me). So, every time
I want to check off something I have to bring up the login modal and login
(which for some reason doesn't always work with lastpass). Why not include a
remember me?

Also, there is no way (I know of) to go back in time and check a box. I just
started using it, and I forget at night to check that I did get my coding
done. There's no way to go back to yesterday's date and check it. So, I keep
missing points.

~~~
philh
One thing you could do is have your day roll over at, say, noon; and then you
can check in the next day instead (at the cost of having to remember what you
did before noon today, until afternoon). I agree, it's not perfect.

Time travel is a tricky issue, because if you're in a party and taking part in
a quest, your missed dailies hurt your party members. So if you go back and
say "actually I did that thing", ideally it needs to restore health to them,
after some of them might have died, etc.

------
dm2
Gamification of boring daily activities is the future in my opinion.

Check this out (ignore the ending and story, it's kind of dark)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJKwHAvR4uI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJKwHAvR4uI)

------
gexla
It's like Pivotal Tracker except you get gold rather than points and you track
your life rather than just projects. ;)

Ads are super annoying. Probably the wrong way to monetize something like
this. Maybe even make a micro payment as part of the system. Lose X - lose
real money. Want to cheat to get your prize? Pay real money.

You could setup Trello to do something like this. Maybe tap into the API to
create a report or something. More flexibility, less cuteness.

------
ntlve
The Android version is going to need a lot of polish. The menu is jittery and
the wrong icons are used. Also the whole app lacks touch feed back so there is
no way of telling if you are pressing a button or not until afterwards.
Finally, a few idioms like long pressing to edit items and such remain
unimplemented which atl east made me confused.

~~~
MBlume
I have had zero luck with the android app, but the webapp is perfectly
playable from chrome-on-android

------
stephengillie
I would go for this if the Dailies and Todos tied into my ticket systems and
email somehow -- maybe make it a social button "Send task to HabitRPG"? Email
could be sending it to an email (username@habitrpg.com?) like a lot of
ticketing systems support.

And is there an app?

~~~
frossie
Yes there is an app, it is simple enough to allow you to tick off tasks, not
much else.

There is an API, and I did see integrations with other to-do systems start to
pop up.

[http://habitrpg.wikia.co/wiki/App_and_Extension_Integrations](http://habitrpg.wikia.co/wiki/App_and_Extension_Integrations)

I was quite excited to see a discussion about tying in with Trello.

Code is on guthub.

~~~
thameera
Correct link:
[http://habitrpg.wikia.com/wiki/App_and_Extension_Integration...](http://habitrpg.wikia.com/wiki/App_and_Extension_Integrations)

------
qmr
Chore Wars did this a long time ago.

[http://www.chorewars.com/](http://www.chorewars.com/)

[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/07/20](http://www.penny-
arcade.com/comic/2007/07/20)

------
donut2d
Looks interesting. I accidentally closed the tutorial. Is there any way to
start it again?

~~~
frossie
Yes you can restart the tutorial.

Settings->Site->Show Tour

------
steveklabnik
I started this last week, set up some stuff, and then promptly forgot about it
:(

------
cfontes
I was looking for a todo app last week and stumbled on this one too.

Tried it for 2 days and the first problem I had was that using this at work
kind of makes you feel stupid and since that is the main feature of the app I
dropped it for which is my top contender for the moment Trello. (tried 2Do,
Any.do, Asana, RTM, Wunderlist, Todoist, Toodledo, Todoist, Astrid and some
others)

I am still not sure if Trello is what I am looking for but it's working OK so
far with some added integration with Pipethru(they work good with Jira) and
Zapier(Trello integration), tried IFTTT but they don't seen to like trello.

~~~
stickhandle
Workflowy

~~~
thameera
I use Workflowy everyday to take notes, organize thoughts etc. But I doubt
it's a good enough contender for maintaining a to-do list.

------
tmrtn
Defeat Ask has been around for a bit. Doesn't really look like it's catching
on. [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/defeat-
task/id674002993?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/defeat-
task/id674002993?mt=8)

By far my fav gasified task list is Carrot to do. Love the story, slick
interface. Uber geeky yet awesome. [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/carrot-to-
do/id591840203?mt=...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/carrot-to-
do/id591840203?mt=8)

------
ChrisNorstrom
Amazing and Flawed. In it's current form it's psychologically flawed and
broken but the main UI is elegant. There's no reason to purchase armor and
swords and level up because there's no battle. There's no battle because
there's no story. There's no game. There's no meaning. The mind immediately
recognizes it all as a trick.

I'd personally keep the look and UI but get rid of the RPG elements and re-
balance the game by using pure reward, punishment, and retention (punishment
for not coming back daily).

------
city41
This is awesome, I'm really looking forward to digging into this. I have a
similar app at [https://metamorf.us](https://metamorf.us), which gamifies
social interactions to improve social skills. Metamorfus is wicked young and
has a long way to go, but the goal is to have it as engaging and cool as
HabitRPG.

~~~
seannaM
I like the idea of metamorf.us a lot, but it seems to me to be solely focused
on social anxiety. Do you have plans to expand out of that?

~~~
city41
What other ideas did you have in mind?

The "do challenges to improve" concept is pretty widely applicable. So far
social anxiety is our focus as the whole team that made metamorfus suffers
from it.

We do have visions of making sister sites based on the metamorfus codebase for
professional development, the honey badger movement, no more mr. nice guy
movement, etc. That would be a long ways off (if ever), as metamorfus itself
is at MVP quality at best right now and is just a side project for us.

~~~
seannaM
I don't think social anxiety is a bad focus at all. I personally suffered from
a lot of social anxiety 10 years ago.

My personal focus right now are more like social finesse, being slightly more
fun at parties, handling difficult social situations (Calling in debts,
interpersonal arguements, close relationships with difficult people, etc)

If you keep up with the social anxiety focus, I'd really like to see some kind
of roadmap for success - Examples of what people using the service or similar
approaches have accomplished. My understanding of social anxiety is that
there's varying degrees of accomplishment for the same effort that people put
in - some people are always going to feel awkward.

I haven't heard of those last two movements personally. Have you thought about
how your site relates to the PUA movement? I've noticed some similarities. I
don't mean that in the I'm currently raising pitchforks way. I think there was
some concern within that community about how to help men with social anxiety
that got drowned out with all of the fuzzy tophatted snake oil salesman and
face-tattooed guys that want you to murder your step kids.

~~~
city41
Thanks for the feedback!

Ah ok, in that case yes we do hope to expand into those areas you mentioned.
Our overall goal with Metamorfus is to become a really good resource on
getting better at socializing, regardless of your background or goals. We
definitely recognize a website can only do so much and people will respond
differently.

We are still building the core of the site and bootstrapping. But we hope to
eventually team up with therapists and relationship/communication experts to
help provide content and guidance for people. So if you decide to take on a
"go to a party" challenge, we hope to also provide tips, advice, and steps you
can take to help make going to a party more successful, and cater that advice
to your needs and skill level. One member of the team is a therapist who
specializes in anxiety, and so we already have a good start on that.

I think the PUA gets a bad rap. Yes it has its problems, but at its core it
always felt like a positive thing to me. I don't mind getting compared to it.
We will definitely strive to keep metamorfus gender neutral and not make
anyone feel uncomfortable though.

Honey badger is the "don't give a f movement"
([http://www.reddit.com/r/howtonotgiveafuck/](http://www.reddit.com/r/howtonotgiveafuck/)),
their overall goal is to flat out not care about anything at all. Which has
its pros and cons, of course. But so far metamorfus has responded well with
that community, many of metamorfus's current members joined from htngaf
communities. And No More Mr Nice Guy is this book --
[http://www.amazon.com/No-More-Mr-Nice-
Guy/dp/0762415339](http://www.amazon.com/No-More-Mr-Nice-Guy/dp/0762415339)
\-- there are in person communities around the country that follow the book,
and the book itself contains many challenges and exercises, so a Metamorfus-
type site could potentially become an online NMMNG community.

 __and btw, if you come back to the site you should find it much faster now.
It was embarrassing how slow it was, we found and fixed the bottleneck :)

------
mmostafa
Around the ~20 minute mark below, video is a few years old but its upbeat and
you can listen in the background. Relevant and a good laugh.
[http://www.g4tv.com/videos/44277/dice-2010-design-outside-
th...](http://www.g4tv.com/videos/44277/dice-2010-design-outside-the-box-
presentation/)

------
anigbrowl
It's cool, but I'll be really glad when this retro-pixelation fad goes away.
It makes me sad that we have great things like SVG accessible now but so many
people seem fixated on making games with early '90s 16-bit graphics.

~~~
nilkn
I don't think it's a fad. It's just an artistic style at this point. There are
a lot of instances where I think it can look better than SVG, but to each his
own.

~~~
taigeair
Nostalgia isn't a fad. It's a human emotion.

------
heavenlescar
This is a really great web app and it helped me a lot on dealing with coping
daily tasks and procrastination. Sadly, their android version was broken and
unusuable, so I uninstalled it and just kept using the web version.

------
oakaz
Great idea, I'm not into games but it makes it more fun to make habits. thanks
so much for creating this.

------
taigeair
I love what you're trying to do but find it confusing to learn how to use it.

------
fragsworth
I'm not really sure how this game works. What prevents players from cheating
by lying about their real-world activities to prevent loss of game progress?

~~~
resu_nimda
Nothing, but then what is the purpose? You're only cheating yourself, and if
you just want to play an RPG there are much better options...

------
AznHisoka
You're 5 years too late. Gamification is old now.

~~~
vyrotek
And time invalidates this how? Databases are old, better stop using them? I've
been in the gamification space since before we had that term. It went through
a typical hype cycle a couple of years ago but it's just now starting to click
with businesses and consumers.

