

New Year's Resolutions: Improve Habits With an RPG - lefnire
http://ocdevel.com/node/568

======
TillE
Like the concept, but the implementation doesn't really click with me. The
ideal for any task-tracking system is to require as little manual overhead as
possible. Typing in stuff and clicking boxes is not very appealing. The Chrome
extension is a lot more interesting.

Using coins to purchase in-game rewards is a good idea. User-defined rewards,
nah. Probably not.

There's too much conceptual overlap between Habits and Daily. I'd get rid of
Habits entirely (who really wants "micro-tasks"?), except as an API thing.

If you want to make something exceptionally cool, integrate with RescueTime
and Fitbit.

~~~
lefnire
Thanks for the comment, your advice shows great understanding of the space
because I've come to many of those same conclusions only after time.

Indeed, I've found very few people to use custom Rewards, I may discontinue
that. The in-game rewards will become more useful when Groups is developed, so
you can compete your avatars.

I've come to deem Habits indeed as useful mostly with APIs, and have
considered manual Habit entry as temporary until enough services utilize the
API, after which I may discontinue manual Habit-entry.

RescueTime and Fitbit are definitely on the horizon, as well as
PivotalTracker, Withings, Anki, and more (see <http://goo.gl/beQtz>)

~~~
Dire
I actually like having my own goals. I'm not too interested in cake but I set
a bunch of monetary rewards. $10 spending money, $30, $50 etc. While obviously
it cost more gold to buy $30 than $10, if I save up for $30 it doesn't cost as
much gold as buying $10 x 3. This is far better motivation than just levelling
up in game. It's almost like going out and buying better equipment in real
life I guess. I really like my rewards that way so hopefully you don't get rid
of custom rewards entirely.

The store items are useful and getting to unlock them is good incentive to
keep playing. I'm looking forward to seeing more of that. Keep up the good
work.

~~~
lefnire
Good to know! Ok, one vote for custom store - I'll make sure to get a better
feel then before making any rash decisions.

~~~
rembranded
Same here! Love the concept of own rewards! For example, your default rewards
include 1 episode of Game of Thrones. Suppose I don't watch GoT (I do, but
still, you understand the idea)? What then? Also, mit would be great if I
could also specify the amount for each reward. I understand sometimes it may
defeat the purpose, but still, IMHO that would be cool too

~~~
lefnire
you can create custom rewards and specify custom amounts. Here's a screen of
these options <http://goo.gl/1T3yu>

------
rembranded
I was trying out the app and was randomly clicking on things. Wanted to see
what would happen if I lost all my health.

Now it says Game Over, and forces me to buy tokens.

Isn't there some way I can reset the game? The tutorial seems woefully
inadequate. I understand, you want to drive more people towards the buy more
tokens for money thing, but could you implement a reset account link there
somewhere?

~~~
lefnire
In the works, not trying to trick ya. See
<https://github.com/lefnire/habitrpg/issues/28>

~~~
rembranded
Wanted to highlight that resetting the account is possible from the death
screen, thanks, but resetting does not give me any tokens (I don't even get
the default tokens associated with a new account)

Also, I am a bit unclear regarding the whole rewards/tokens system. Is there
any way I can get additional tokens without paying for them? To explain myself
so as to not sound liek a complete cheapskate, I live in India, and the USD-
INR exchange rate isn't exactly favourable.

~~~
lefnire
Resetting should restore your tokens to 8, it seems to be working for other
people are you sure it's not working? Tokens will be used for buying digital
items, flare stuff as with Farmeville. I might come up with alternative ways
to earn tokens, but for now you won't really need those items for character
development anyway.

~~~
rembranded
I don't have any tokens even after resetting, but no matter good sir. I shall
continue to play this until the Grim Reaper has taken me. And then, I will
reset it and continue playing it.

Let me take this moment to say, I have literally waited years for something
like Epic Win to come to Android. Though I heard that it wasn't as Epic as
promised. This seems to be the start of such a journey. May you succeed in
your quest.

~~~
lefnire
Hmm.. Are you running from habitrpg.com, or a locally deployed version? Live
version no longer requires tokens on Continue: <http://goo.gl/TnD2V> . Re:
Epic / Android, I hope the Kickstarter kicks! I have huge plans for Android,
as well as new features on web

~~~
rembranded
I am able to view the screen that you are mentioning, and I can continue and
reset my account. What I am trying to say is after resetting my account
successfully, I have 0 tokens left to purchase anything. My tokens don't get
reset is it?

~~~
lefnire
Oh, I see - you're clicking "Continue", which simply revives your character.
If you want a hard reset, as in starting from scratch (deleting your tasks and
restoring your tokens), which is discouraged really, you have to click "Reset"
from the account dropdown top-right.

------
Fuzzwah
I've just got into a really good habit of using trello for everything, I look
forward to this having an API so I could look into hooking the two together.

~~~
lefnire
If any of you develop, Habit has very simple one-method REST:
<https://github.com/lefnire/habitrpg/wiki/API>

------
jimfl
It would be cool to have an external source of quests/bounties, such as user
stories to be implemented, trouble tickets to be addressed, etc.

~~~
lefnire
If you have coding chops, check out the API for that
<https://github.com/lefnire/habitrpg/wiki/API>

------
kentwistle
I tried to login with facebook but got the following error message "Cannot GET
/auth/facebook" then, when trying to visit the homepage I got the error
"Cannot GET /"

It seems to be working again but I think I triggered an error 500

~~~
lefnire
I just started seeing this too. I think I know what it is, and am trying to
figure out how to go about fixing it. When someone closes their laptop or
turns off their phone before closing the browser tab, it crashes the app.
Something with socket.io + connect-mongo in DerbyJS, it's a new bug.

Anyway, 500 indeed - but I'm using nodejitsu/forever-monitor to restart the
app when it crashes, so it should come back just fine, you'll just have to
refresh and wait a bit. Thanks for pointing this out

------
xiaoma
I'm a bit confused by this. How is it an RPG? Whose role do you get to play?

~~~
lefnire
You're looking at the technical definition of RPG, not the traditional. Didn't
play much SNES?

~~~
xiaoma
I played tons of video games as a kid, and did some table-top RPGs, too! The
role playing games I played all involved characters and a story.

------
ElliotH
I find with these things that failure discourages me from using the service so
I fall off whatever wagon immediately, rather than recording my failure.

Any suggestions for working around that?

~~~
lefnire
I would say, word all your failures as successes. (+)points for "a day without
junk food" instead (-)points for "junkfood". With HabitRPG you can do that by
making everything a habit with only "up" enabled - don't use dailies, and make
sure your habits have "down" disabled.

Alternatively, if you find compounding failures to be the issue, you can reset
your character on HabitRPG (which I do quite frequently) when you're ready to
start over.

------
lefnire
HabitRPG Kickstarter (iPhone & Android apps, website bugs & new features):
<http://kck.st/XoA3Yg>

------
Devlin_Donnelly
I really like the idea of a game designed to help you out with real life.

I am inspired to perhaps create one along these lines myself!

------
lampe
I Love RPG's :) but i dont like todo lists and so on.

I will give it a try maybe it can help me Organreize better :)

------
unemployed
<https://vimeo.com/13179002> epic win, similar app?

~~~
lefnire
Very similar. It's a really cool app, too - had I known about it before, I
wouldn't have developed C'est la vie.

Pros/Cons: * Epic is only iPhone, Habit is Web & responsive, so will work on
all devices. I'm working on a PhoneGap app too. Anyway, I thought EW only on
iPhone was lame, since I have Android. * EW is badge-based, and only tracks
improvement. Habit is more traditional RPG-style (exp, hp, gp) and tracks both
improvements and failure, so it's better for gauging actual progress. ++ for
Habit: it's more real, and more comfortable for SNES RPG players. ++ for EW:
you won't experience failure anxiety, as @ElliotH mentioned below.

~~~
tbirdz
FWIW: I'll definitely be checking out HabitRPG, and will not be able to use
the other app, as I do not have an iPhone, or other smartphone.

------
Iuz
Pretty cool!

