Flow is a really sought after experience in game design. It’s really engaging and enthralling because players lose a sense of time and space when they are in the flow state. They become lost and completely enveloped in the game world.

But designing a game to engage players’ flow states is not an easy feat to accomplish. So, just how do you design games to that take advantage of this flow state?

This article outlines and describes the flow state in the player experience. It’ll also explain the most important and influential reasons for designing for flow. Flow state is comprised of a balance of goals and feedback and how both are reflected and influenced by perceptual control. So, this article will examine how these disparate elements work together to help players engage in that state.

Difficulty modulation is an important aspect to flow state in players. Games can’t be so easy so that players just fly by on autopilot. Likewise, they can’t be so hard that they become discouraged and lose the motivation to play them. Therefore, balancing the difficulty of a game is a critical part of designing for the flow state.

However, competitive orthogames introduce another factor in designing for the flow state: other players’ actions and abilities. Therefore, this article will examine how pre-developed knowledge from players influences how they play, act, and interact with other players in these competitive orthogames.

Finally, this article closes on the applied flow state in its use in games as well as the most critical considerations for game design and the application of games-based learning.

Flow Described

So what exactly is the flow state? It’s often a very beguiling and seductive experience. Flow state often occurs in game play when the player’s attention is a completely captured by the game and they lose all sense of time and space. However, the flow state is not just limited to games. Instead, creatives such as artists, musicians, and writers often experience the flow state when they are completely engrossed with their work.

In addition, talented athletes also experience the flow state when they are tasked with performing at the peak of their abilities.  Students can also experience the flow state when they are studying or pursuing subjects that they are naturally interested in and are intrinsically motivated to pursue.

While flow state can occur for many different people through many different activities; the effect remains the same. Someone in the flow state is completely absorbed in the task and are wholly focused on the activity. They are not distracted by music, conversation, or even digital notifications.

So flow state can occur in individuals others than gamers. But gaming is one of the most common elements that engages players so wholly and fully in this feeling. That’s because really great, challenging, and engaging games require players to think and concentrate on a task or activity. Such is the critical elements for the flow state and why it’s such as sought after outcome for game designers.

Why Design for Flow?

So what would even be the purpose of designing a game for the flow state if it’s something that’s only achieved on the player’s end? It’s because, as the designer,  it’s your responsibility to provide a structure for interaction so that players can more easily enter a flow state.

In addition, players who enter the flow state demonstrate a higher level of game performance that also translates over to increased academic performance. As a result, players undertake more challenges as well as become more immersed in the interactivity of games: both of which result in more positive outcomes with games-based learning.

This immersion that is a byproduct of flow state is also closely tied with the development of a playful learning experience. Especially one that provides players agency in determining how they want to play, interact, and learn.

Of course, player agency is an integral part of successful games. But how exactly do other formal game elements influence and affect players’ development of flow state in games?

Goals, Feedback, and Flow

One of the main formal elements of helping players enter a state of flow is to design and structure clear goals for players. These goals should be clear as well as convey relevant meaning to players when they appear in the game. Sometimes these goals are dependent on one another: such as attaining a specific sword for a player in an RPG in order to slay a specific creature. In this way, the sword represents a clear goal in a linear path towards achieving the goal (slaying the creature).

Players should also be provided feedback in their pursuit of these goals. This feedback should be immediate and appropriate for players in order to help them more easily enter the flow state. This is especially relevant for digital games as even a minuscule amount of lag between player actions and results could break a player’s sense of immersion.

This represents an area where serious games, learning games, and educational games can close the gap with commercially available entertainment games. By providing an individual feedback that is related (but not completely connected to learning outcomes); players can more easily enter the flow state that supports their continued engagement. Such continued play should then link other formal game elements such as game mechanics and dynamics to the ultimate learning outcome for players.

Likewise, the game doesn’t need to be the only vehicle for feedback. Getting feedback from other learners and players provides yet another dimension for individuals to learn and adjust. This feedback can come from competitive play with other players; cooperative collaboration; or through comparison of individual results. In addition, instructors and facilitators can also change game settings, rules, and structures in order to better accommodate players’ performance and overall activity within the game.

Perceptual Control

One of the most critical parts of developing a flow state for players is making sure that they have both the agency and the ability to control the outcome of their circumstances via the formal elements of the game. This perceptual control refers to the actual systems that players use to affect these outcomes. This form of control is what makes games much different from watching a movie, reading a book, or other forms of narratives. Perpetual control gives players the ability to affect and change outcomes.

However, this control is not monolithic. Instead, designers should set elements and structures through which players can exact that control in the game. This makes it so that while players may attain “mastery” of the controls in the game, it may not always indicate mastery of the game. An example of this are games may have very rudimentary controls (i.e. Guitar Hero). But the use of those controls, and how they are combined with other game dynamics, make it so that there exists an opportunity for players to enter a flow state through the use of more challenging formats to augment those controls though more difficult songs, challenges, and changing rhythms.

The development of player controls is perhaps the most difficult and critical for designers for helping players enter a flow state. That’s because really intuitive controls can make it so that the players become more easily engrossed in the game versus ineffective control schemes which cause players to lose interest in the game.

Player interest can be increased even more when player’s decisions cause different outcomes and impacts in the game based on their selections. As such, the game becomes more repayable as specific outcomes based on specific player controls are not guaranteed. This can come about through game design (i.e. rougelike games with procedurally generated levels) or it can come about through competitive games such as playing against opponents whose actions may not be as predicable.

Difficulty Modulation

Opposing players actions and reactions to others in the game represents one facet of difficulty modulation. This is because not all players have the same level of skills and interest in the game and therefore react differently according to game conditions. For designers this means creating games that have a “sweet spot” in its difficulty that doesn’t make the game too hard (or too easy) to master. Such pinpointing is part of designing games for players to more easily enter the flow state.

This represents a main challenge for designers of single player digital games. That’s because these games must change dynamically accordingly to the player in order to keep them engaged in this “sweet spot” of difficulty modulation. The same can be said for games-based learning as games that are too easy also don’t represent an adequate challenge for the player. They therefore risk falling into boredom. Likewise, games that are too hard make it so that they may stop playing the game out of frustration.

This doesn’t mean that players enter games at the sweet spot of difficulty modulation. On the contrary, players must start out at a level that is easy for them to adapt to the mechanics and dynamics of the game and then ease into more difficult challenges that further engage them in play. Specifically in instructor lead games-based learning; individuals can dynamically change the difficulty of a game in order to provide a negative feedback loop where the experience will adjust according to the performance of the learner.

Pre-Developed Knowledge and Flow

Sometimes players pre-developed or pre-achieved knowledge will be useful or important for determining if they enter a flow state when playing a game. While subjective experience with other games or other experiences can be helpful, knowing how one’s actions affect and influence the outcome of game play is also important to know.

This can be particularly impactful for games that require a high degree of coordination and difficult learning curve to perform well. These occur frequently in MOBAs (multiplayer online battle arena) which is a type of video game where two teams compete against one another to achieve in-game objectives. Games like DOTA require a significant amount of foreknowledge in order for participants to play and compete effectively. This high requirement can often be a barrier to players from entering the flow state; but can produce an experience of flow akin to what high performance athletes experience when they are performing at the top of their abilities.

The amount of foreknowledge can change considerably based on the application of games. For educational, learning, and serious games, this amount of pre-development knowledge should only minimally affect game play as learning the mechanics and dynamics of the game often go hand in hand with the learning outcomes of its design. However, care should be taken that if a when a flow state is entered by students in serious game design; that it serve the greater purpose and learning outcomes intended by instructors.

Competitive Experience and Flow

While games like DOTA and other MOBAs often require a high degree of pre-developed knowledge; the same cannot be said for other directly competitive games. Some specific abstract games require only knowledge of the game’s formal structures; while others require this as well as some advanced knowledge on tactics and strategy in order to be successful.

Perhaps the most important thing to consider when applying competitive games for teaching and learning is to pair players together of equal or similar skill level. Doing so ensures that players are provided with the correct degree of difficulty and are augmenting the game so that it is not too easy nor is it too difficult for players. The result of which is structure in which the flow state can be more easily entered for individuals.

This ranking and matchmaking should ideally change and increase to provide more competitive and able players more difficult opponents and challenges to attempt. This makes it so that the difficulty is increased relative to players abilities and the abilities of their competitors.

Unlike single player or campaign games, competitive games rely on the experience and interaction with a player with like or similar skill levels. This also relates and is connected to the social nature of games and how play provides a structure of interaction with other students, learners, and gamers.

Applied Flow

The use and value of flow in games was previously covered. But, how is flow applied in game design? The formal elements of games include mechanics, dynamics, components, aesthetics, and to some extent story and technology. Flow as a result is an outcome gained by players based on a careful construction of these formal elements that provides excellent feedback through difficulty modulation and goals through player control.

Flow is an important process to design and uphold in games, because it can often mean the difference between a widely successful commercial game and a mildly successful one. Ultimately, flow state is in the hands of players. They can achieve this through thoughtful game design and is something that is sought after by players: even though they may not be that explicit about it.

Likewise, more hobbyist and enthusiastic gamers may embark on their own mission to achieve flow state. This can come about through their review and study of games, game elements, and game situations. Professional poker players and others who make their living playing and competing with games often necessitate this.  However, the individual student and learner may not be prepared to make this kind of commitment.

Despite this, serious game designers can merge the applicable and relatively addictive nature of commercial games with the learning outcomes and educational achievements that serious games have to offer.

Flow Design Considerations

Ultimately games-based learning is about using games as a medium for teaching and learning. Games-based learning is based on experiential learning which focuses on learning as the transformation of experience into knowledge. The purpose of designing for flow is to give a player a good gaming experience: specifically one that they can use to meet an expected educational outcome.

Therefore, when designing for flow, designers should consider how potential changes to game components, mechanics, and formal structures may or may not take a player out of a state of flow. This balanced approach to game design also includes providing a wide variety of activities and difficulties for players to engage and experience the game. These don’t have to be unique opportunities; as common game mechanics and structures can be used regularly and applied in different contexts to provide unique game dynamics to players.

Therefore, when designing for flow, creators target three levels of player patterns: feeling the aesthetics for the game; examining and discerning the game’s dynamics; and finally mastering the game’s mechanics and dynamics. Following this, the best designed games also augment and adjust their tolerances for players’ interactions in order to make the game relatively challenging for the individual.

Games-Based Learning and Flow

Flow is an outcome from the most successful and addictive commercial games. It’s something that can also be designed for with educational, learning, and serious games. When using games-based learning, flow can be utilized as a way for learners to become deeply engaged in the learning process. Likewise, flow can also be accomplished in other mediums such as traditional college and university classes when examining curriculum from a game designer’s perspective.

Instructors, teachers, and professors educating in a more orthodox environment will highly prize the state of flow engaged by students as they become more deeply engaged with the learning material and the intended outcomes. However, like games designers, flow is achieved from two different perspectives: from players and learners engagement in the game and designers and instructors preparation of the game and learning materials.

Part of the way that educators can approach teaching and learning like a game designer is to focus on the experience of learning and game play. Specifically, they should focus on applications of learning outcomes outside of the classroom and game: thus providing learners with a wider perspective of what and how they can apply their newfound knowledge.

This is often best accomplished with serious games that are designed from the ground up with a learning outcome in mind. The closer that educators and designers can get to connecting cognitive activities in the game with both intended learning outcomes and practical applications; the better they can more wholly educate students while also emphasizing a prioritization of flow in game play.

Takeaways

This article covered how to design games for the flow state. Flow was described and defined in relation to game design. Specific reasons were offered for designing games for players’ flow states. The formal elements of games were identified: specifically goals, feedback, and perceptual player control as it relates to the development of the flow state.

Perceptual control was related to difficulty modulations and how changing challenges that adjust to player competency and efficacy help continue to engage players in the game and maintain their flow state. This was further complicated by games that require some kind of pre-developed knowledge in order to play more advanced games. Those advanced games also included competitive games where prior game knowledge is often necessary to compete and play at a higher level.

Finally, this article ended on applied flow for games as well as design considerations for integrating flow into game play. Lastly, the flow state in games-based learning was addressed in applications for educators and instructors.

This article was about designing games for flow state.   To learn more about gamification, check out the free course on Gamification Explained.

If you have enjoyed this article – consider getting yourself lifetime access to Dave’s Games-Based Learning Digital Library containing all of the content from the past two Games-Based Learning Virtual Conferences; past webinars and courses he’s created; as well as his complete back catalogue of articles; podcast episodes; and videos. And more content is being added all the time.

Readers of Ludogogy can get a $50 discount on this valuable resource by using this link.

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Gamification and Games

What’s the relationship between gamification and games?  Some people think that the term ‘game’ includes gamification. On the other hand, other people think that gamification includes games. From the gamification researchers’ perspective, they generally think that the wider meaning of gamification includes games. I have a slightly different perspective on this. Gamification and game are not mutually inclusive, but are different concepts with some relatedness.

The definition of gamification which I use, is that it is a way to improve achievement by changing unamusing or boring things into interesting ones, through applying game formats or elements in non-game settings. The prerequisite in this definition is that it happens in non-game settings. The picture representing this definition is as follows.

From the gamification design perspective, game elements are used. So, a deep relationship with games is required. However, the game industry itself, doesn’t have much need to have a similar and reciprocal relationship with gamification. In terms of expanding games into other areas, it’s positive and encouraged – games are often seen being used in other fields. But currently, games have little to gain from gamification. So, in most cases, it isn’t necessary for game designers and developers to get interested in gamification.

If gamification means adding parts of game formats or elements in non-game settings, it follows that adding game elements into games is not needed. In terms of the definition of gamification, gamification and games are related but separate. In addition, there is a limitation that the relationship is not bidirectional but unidirectional.

For developing gamification, the broad participation of game developers or researchers is necessary. But, I think that this participation is small. The reason why gamification doesn’t get much support from the game industry, is because the gamification side thinks that gamification includes ‘games’ in its broader meaning. From a game industry perspective, it can be viewed as insulting that games are seen as just part of gamification.

So, I think that gamification and games are currently separately considered. But if there will be more cooperative and equivalent stances between gamification and games, the games industry may get more interested in gamification.

Purpose and Fun, Gamification is harder than games

Gamification has to seek both objectives and fun, unlike games. Therefore, in considering my background as a game developer and Ph.D. in games, game development itself is very difficult, but gamification development is even harder than game development. The game just covers pure fun and play characteristics without achieving specific objectives. Gamification aims to make achievement easier, for the end user, by iterating the objectives in a fun way through the addition of game elements. But, for the designer, satisfying both objectives and fun is very hard. I think that’s why there aren’t many successful gamification use-cases.

Although many areas try to seek gamification by applying game elements, the most important thing is the objective that should be achieved. In the education sector, learning effects are the most important ones. In the medical sector, health improvement is paramount. If there aren’t many effects of learning or improvement in health, despite being fun, it’s meaningless. So, game elements in gamification are auxiliary tools to prompt the achievement of objectives and make it easier.

In current situations, it’s hard for the game industry to get attracted to gamification. If many successful gamification cases are made, the game industry may be interested. But, I think that the gamification industry itself has to learn about games deeply. People should learn the game theories, apply them in various fields, and make many successful gamification cases. This is a starting point.

If possible, I want to share various stories as a game researcher in the future. I hope that shared game information will be helpful in making many successful gamification cases.

** The above article may not match the opinion and editorial direction of Ludogogy (or the Gamification Journal). It intends to show various perspectives on gamification in the game industry and its academics in Korea.

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Practical Methodology for the Design of Educational Serious Games can be read in full at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338152242_Practical_Methodology_for_the_Design_of_Educational_Serious_Games

An archive of all currently available infographics can be found in the Research Infographics page.

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Motivation Theory

Motivation is a basic research area, which is given much importance in many social science fields including psychology. In a complex modern society, the ‘how-to’ of helping people to become immersed in an activity, has to be carefully considered.

In traditional motivation theory, sources of motivation are divided into extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation.

Extrinsic motivation means that the reasons people are driven to make efforts are related to external rewards, recognition, or pressure. So, behaviour is changed, because of things such as monetary payment, praise, recognition, reward, or punishment, or gain or loss of status or level. This is ‘carrot or stick’  motivation, depending on whether it drives towards or away from something.

On the other hand, intrinsic motivation means that people make efforts because of internal drives. These might include value or meaning, passion, curiosity or pleasure, fun, growth, and so on, and seeking these will drive behaviour. The phrase ‘Self-development’, is related to this concept.

The overall consensus of modern motivation theorists is, that in the past, in simple & repeated production / consumption environments,  that ‘carrot and stick’ based on extrinsic motivation was effective in performance improvement. However, in the current environment, where there is a greater requirement for creative results, this will be counter-productive. Enhancing intrinsic motivation will be more effective. This has been shown in psychological experiments.

Gamification

Gamification is composed of ‘game’ and ‘-fication’, meaning that work can be created as gameplay, or that gameplay can be created as work. It’s a convergent concept. The most simple and representative definition of gamification is ‘using the game elements for users’ participation and motivation enhancement in non-game areas’. In other words, game elements such as points, badges, leaderboard, performance graphs, levels, and quest design, avatar, competition, randomness, and story in commercial or public non-game areas can be utilized for enhancing participation and motivation.

Motivation can be enhanced by gamification in what kind of fields?

From my experience, gamification can be applied in almost every ‘work’ field for participation and motivation enhancement. It’s related to learning, problem-solving, participation and flow, change, performance improvement, communication, and so on.

• Learning –School education curriculum, Adult education
• Problem-solving – Solving chronic (social) issues, Creative ideas
• Participation and flow – Participation/feedback, flow
• Change – Change of thought and behavior, Continuity of changed behavior
• Performance improvement –Productivity, Speed, Quality of product or service
• Communication – Internal communication, External PR/Advertisement

Gamification from the perspective of motivation theory

If gamification is added in these kinds of non-game areas, ‘work’ is made into something fun and people are motivated. However, there is no guarantee that this will lead to sustained, and sustainable, passion and flow to the extent that we want, because we become easily accustomed to ‘fun’ and ultimately feel bored. Because of this, we have to think about gamification in terms of enhancing the ‘intrinsic motivation’ which will maintain passion. This is what the motivation theorists put forward.

Gamification considerations for enhancing intrinsic motivation

Any game elements which bring about fun and provide stimulus can be used in gamification  But for sustainable passion and flow, the following design factors have to be deeply considered.

• Meaningful value and mission: Clarifying the value that is found in the individual and the team and in the mission of carrying out the (target) gamified job well.
• Story: Creating the appropriate narrative structure for the real-life or game-world story, as well as the gamified struction for the task or mission.
• Objective and challenge: Allowing individuals and teams to set their own performance targets, which will be appropriately challenging, including competition between players.
• Feedback: Sufficient feedback and encouragement for intrinsic passion and meaning.
• Comprehensive approach in change management: Structuring the gamified work for supporting and enhancing the real environment. Design which complements the real work and activity process (out-of-game) and the principles of the organization and its operation.
• End-game: Designing the process of continuous improvement and development after the game.

In conclusion, if the approaches from the second box are carefully designed in addition to approaches from the first box, gamification motivation will be much more complete.

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This paper can be read in full at https://research.tudelft.nl/files/105030829/3474663.pdf

An archive of all currently available infographics can be found in the Research Infographics page.

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Game Mechanics and why they are employed (2018) can be read in full at ResearchGate

An archive of all currently available infographics can be found in the Research Infographics page.

The post Learning Online through Gamification first appeared on Ludogogy.

Understanding Gamification is available on Amazon.

An archive of all currently available infographics can be found in the Research Infographics page.

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This is available to read in full at https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3474663

An archive of all currently available infographics can be found in the Research Infographics page.

The post Purpose Increases Pleasure in Serious Games first appeared on Ludogogy.

Interestingly, the 2nd and 3rd categories are education and business respectively. Food for thought – given there is an indication that the greatest demand from phone apps is that of entertainment, learning, and productivity respectively, could there be a way to merge these in some way?

A significant section (~58%) of mobile games are puzzles, mostly to be solved in a single-player mode. Also fondly called brain training games, they are shown to improve cognitive functions, reduce anxiety, enhance memory, etc. There are different factors behind the success and effectiveness of such games, two of which will be discussed in this article.

Simplicity, The Ultimate Sophistication – Sudoku

Hitting its peak of popularity in the mid-2000’s, Sudoku was on every second newspaper reader’s mind as they were opening the pages to find the puzzles section. Next to the crossword and jumbled words would be Sudoku, a numbers-based pattern puzzle that takes just a minute to get familiar with – and at least a few weeks to properly conquer.

Sudoku players testify to the efficacy of this game – they feel more relaxed after playing a game or two. Sudoku has surprising benefits beyond mathematical confidence – from building focus to dealing with wrong choices, it brings a growth mindset to its loyal audiences. The puzzle, which originated in Europe before surging in Japan, has simple secrets in its recipe that make it an instant hit.

The first of these secrets is the simplicity of trying the game, and it goes beyond the simplicity of the rules. Most puzzles involving numbers need some mathematical knowledge, the bare minimum being operations like addition and subtraction. In Sudoku, however, no prior knowledge is required. The game is driven completely by logic – with or without mathematical experience, the game has a similar level of challenge for everyone. Even knowing the sequence of numbers from 1-9 is not necessary – they are simply different symbols whose order in the number system does not matter much inside the game.

The second factor is the continuous stream of dopamine hits the player receives, making correct entries. Providing small and rapid completion checkpoints to a player keeps them on the right track. Once they know they are moving in the right direction, they get a sense of confidence and are more motivated to continue (and finish) the puzzle. Small successes like correctly completing a row, a column, or a smaller box in the game are great ways to motivate the player and make them feel good during the game. If it were the opposite – if you get to know you are playing the game right only upon completion of the 9*9 grid, it might be too long of an exercise to correct your mistakes or enjoy the parts you got right.

Sudoku is highly engaging, to the extent that players wait for the puzzle on an almost daily basis. They even collect old newspapers or archives from other providers, just to solve a different puzzle once in a while. Veteran players of the game swear by playing the game with a pencil, so that prior errors can be erased – a direct result of seeing visible results inside the game.

Atomic Habits Put To Practice – Wordle

Wordle was the most popular puzzle game from last year, bringing a positive and welcome change to the general netizen conscience. You could not spend a single day on Instagram or Twitter without seeing a 5-unit wide set of emoji squares, in three different colors, shared with captions like “phew, almost blew this one” and “is that even a word?”. Curiosity often drove more audiences to play the game, enjoy the simplicity of the puzzle, and endorse it even further. This resulted in a virality of unprecedented scale, taking the game to 2 million people in just a matter of 3 months!

Games on language have existed for a long time; from Scrabble to Spelling Bee, they engage players in application of vocabulary skills on different levels. What Wordle did differently came to light after its spinoffs failed to achieve similar success – variations where you get unlimited puzzle challenges instead of one per day did not take off, and neither did the ones where the word length varies every day. The brilliance of Wordle can be attributed to some key design principles, which are resonant with James Clear’s ideologies from his excellent book Atomic Habits.

You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.

– James Clear, author of Atomic Habits

Clear opined that since man is a creature of habit, most of our decisions are guided by how our semi-conscious mind reacts to situations. By slowly building habits, we can drastically improve our lives in the long run. The tenets of making consistent habits have been described in his book, one of which is consistency. Consistently and regularly putting a skill to practice, even for a small objective, yields great results – something the Wordle puzzle can be applauded for.

By making one problem and just one problem available to a player for every day, the task is so well-defined and small-scale that it feels almost foolish to skip the puzzle. Moreover, the amount of challenge in these problems is not too high, and yet deceptive enough to ensure exertion is required. The stakes get higher with every try, and the real-time feedback by coloured squares guide the player to the correct word effectively. Moreover, sharing the puzzle results makes us feel more involved in a social movement. In fact, it created a culture of accountability – people felt they OUGHT to share their results, bringing to life another aspect of Clear’s ideas.

The social and mental aspects of game design make a large difference to the players’ experience. You can engage and hook your players with more meaningful rewards and challenges, for which they keep returning to the game not as an endless empty pursuit, but for self-improvement and mental refinement. There is a lot of potential in exploring these opportunities, and we hope this article gave you some actionable insights to put you ahead in your game design journey.

The post Elevate Your Next Puzzle With These Design Secrets first appeared on Ludogogy.

I often spend ages tweaking the stats and using them to create a backstory in my imagination of how this character has become who they have, how they have pitched up in the location they are in, what drives them to adventure.

I favour magic users (at least when I am playing Dungeons and Dragons style games), so I will usually find that the stats profile of my characters are quite similar. They are low on Strength and Constitution usually, because all the available points have been allocated heavily towards Intelligence, to ensure a healthy number of spell points. A low-level magic user will need some strong allies who are willing to front the party and shield him or her, to ensure some chance of survival to be a higher-level magic user.

We roleplay in real life

And so it is in real life, we have our strengths and weaknesses, our specific skillsets, allies and competencies, which taken together, paint a picture of someone who is fit (or not so fit) to act in specific roles, or to carry out particular pieces of work. In life, this idea is often expressed as a ‘job description’.

The Job Description is actually a pretty one-dimensional way of describing what somebody is, as it only captures a narrow set of characteristics, which are usually (unless you are very lucky), desired by a third party to execute specific tasks.

As a (whole) person, you have many more characteristics and skills which are not relevant to this ‘job description’. In (the game of) real life you may often play with your ‘Project Manager’ avatar or character, but at other times you play your ‘Parent’ character or your ‘Drummer in a Ska Band’ character. Each of them prioritise different characteristics, skills, allies and activities. And you can ‘grow’ in each of those roles at different rates.

There is often friction because of the demands of the different characters on your time and energy. For example, the ‘Parent’ might not be able to develop as she wishes because the ‘Project Manager’ is impinging on her time.

The featured image of this article shows part of a character sheet from ‘The Game of You’ compiled by a 15 year old. The Character she wants to play is ‘In-demand Babysitter’. She is currently at Level 7 in her progress towards becoming the fully-realised babysitter she wants to become over the summer holidays – Level 20 in this game represents ‘the best you can be’.

It should not be assumed from this that the  ‘Game of You’ is only suitable for young people – just that I tend to use my nearest and dearest for trying out game ideas!!

The different characters which make up ‘You’

In an RPG, a player can have as many characters playing in different games and campaigns as s/he pleases

The ‘Game of You’ encourages you to play a game of personal and professional development, in which you can also play any of the characters that are significant to you, track their progress towards important development goals and (which is not usually a feature of ‘for fun’ RPGs), use what you discover about these ‘characters’ to explore balance and priorities in your life and growth.

The Character Sheet is the basis of ‘The Game of You’, as it allows players to create their own ‘character’ (or set of characters) in the style of an RPG. A pen and paper version is available, and a fully-functioning automatically calculating version will be posted on itch.io soon.

Today, I started to add the functionality of the ‘Quest’ sheet. The idea behind Quests is to reflect on the value of ‘learning’ activities to the development of your characters.

In an RPG we can experience from all sorts of activities, quests, combat, even ‘grinding’. From each of these we will gain experience points (XP), which are recorded for your character, and contribute to their levelling up.

RPGs (objectively) measure experience

In life, we similarly learn from everything we do, each project, each social interaction, every win (or failure) and yes – even the grinding. Learning does not only happen from ‘special purpose’ learning activities. The only difference between real life and an RPG, in this respect, is the enumeration. We do not, usually and habitually, enumerate our learning from experience.

Sometimes however, we are called upon to do so. When applying for a job, one of the purposes of a CV (resume), is to inform others about what we have learned from the experiences we have had, and how it might match to a potential role. Often that is expressed through length of experience, or through qualifications.

Roleplaying your CV

If you’re anything like me, updating your CV can be a bit of a feat of memory, and what you end up with never really describes all the nuances of how you have developed. Also, given that CVs need to be customised to each new opportunity, they are far from representative of your ‘whole self’

If real life were more like an RPG, each new experience would reflect in your ‘stats’, AND you would gather a ’quest log’ along the way, which would be a permanent record of the ‘value’ of any given experience to your permanent and professional development.

Quest Sheet attached to Character Sheet ‘In-demand Babysitter’ – by a 15 year old girlThe ‘Game of You’ Quest sheet links with the Character Sheet and updates your stats on the completion of your quest. It writes the ‘story’ of your quest to a quest log, and then clears itself, so that you can use it to record your next quest.

And because we never only have one quest on the go, or indeed, only have one character’s game underway, you can have multiple quest sheets attached to each ‘character’, and indeed multiple characters in play in the ‘Game of You’.

Your ‘Whole Self’ is more than your CV

But what about your ‘whole self’? In an RPG I can be playing several different characters in different games, and they can all have very different ‘levels’. In life, my experience in my different roles, works in much the same way.  I am a high-level Learning Professional, but a low level (at the moment) Plasterer and Bridge Player. Ongoing house renovation will ensure I level up pretty quickly in plastering (I may take a course to speed up that process), and I am hoping that I will soon get the chance to play at the Bridge club I have joined to polish up skills including ‘bidding’ and ‘finessing’, as well as adding some new allies to my ‘Socialiser’ character sheet.

Just like the variety of CVs you have to produce to satisfy the requirement of different job applications, your different character sheets will reflect ‘how well’ you are doing in developing growing in different important ‘character’ areas of your life.

The Future of the Game of You

The ‘Game of You’ is a work in progress, and is developing as an idea as each new component is added.

At the moment, there is an MVP (minimum viable product) of the Character Sheet. This will soon be joined by an auto-calculating version of the character sheet and linked Quest Sheet and Quest Log.

In time, it is envisaged that the full game will include:

• Spells /power ups – strategies and hacks that may not actually be magic, but feel like they might be as they impact your resilience, productivity and well-being
• Player dashboard – a summary of your characters, which can be used as an overview of balance in different life areas
• Quests which update more than one character
• CV (resume) templates based on character sheets
• Pre-loaded quests – pre-populated quests sheets, that for example, represent the XP and skills value of undertaking an accredited learning programme.
• Aspirational character sheets – representing the ‘gap’ between the ‘stats’ of a person you would like to model, and your own character, so you can work on that gap.

If you would like to get involved in developing this idea, maybe as a resource you could use with Coaching Clients, learning cohorts or for your own personal / professional development-get in touch at sarah@ludogogy.co.uk

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