Max Nichols story

From Anything Goes Wiki

Timeless

• Intention: I intend to help people feel like they are making progress.
• Belief: I believe that clear progress make tasks more enjoyable and fulfilling.
• People: My people know what they want, but need encouragement to move towards their goal.
• Invention: My invention is a game that shows people their progress and helps encourage them to reach their goals.

Contemporary

Intention

• I intend to use structured game progression to provide users the sense of making progress.

Beliefs

• I believe that game elements can always make learning and work more engaging.
• I believe that being engaged is the only way to grow as a person.

People

• My people want to exercise more, but need structure to feel like they are making progress.
• My people want exercise to be enjoyable, not just healthy.
• My people don't see immediate positive effect from exercising.

Invention

• The Challenge Project is a social facebook game designed to let people log their exercise as a method of progress in the game.
• TCP lets a group of athletes compete in simulated races.
• TCP lets a family cooperate towards the completion of each other's goals.
• TCP shows the user quantifiable progress every time they exercise.

Stories

As a game designer, I'm very fascinated by the power a game structure has to create an enjoyable, addictive sense of progress and power in it's players. I was studying one of the most famous examples of this, World of Warcraft, which is a very addictive game about gradually empowering yourself in the form of a digital avatar. I asked myself the question: why couldn't someone use the same techniques to make people want to empower their real-life bodies, situation, or skills?