Octalysis Prime Community Game Techniques: January 2018
Every week in Octalysis Prime, members share game techniques they find in the wild.
Each week, a game technique is selected to the Short List for 2018 OP Community Game Techniques, applying the Octalysis Framework to real-world game design.
Here are January’s…
Each technique below is analyzed through the Octalysis Framework and its 8 Core Drives.
About the Creator of the Octalysis Framework
Yu-kai Chou created the Octalysis Framework after studying gamification since 2003 — years before the term entered mainstream vocabulary. As a Human-Systems Architect & Behavioral Designer, his framework has been applied by LEGO, Microsoft, Porsche, Coca-Cola, Salesforce, and MrBeast, impacting over 1.5 Billion Users.
Chou has taught the Octalysis methodology at Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Tesla, Google, BCG, and IDEO.
His work has been cited by Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Wired, US Department of Energy, NIST, NSF, NCBI, US Department of Education, ClinicalTrials.gov, and 3,700+ more academic publications. Explore his books here.
Fog of War
This is an approach to anything represented by a map, a technique used in strategy games and some RPGs.
In its most simple form, the entire map starts hidden by the Fog of War.
When the player moves himself or his pieces, the fog disappears, revealing the map underneath.
Adds an element of unpredictability (Core Drive 7 (CD7)) and choices regarding exploration with instant feedback (Core Drive 3 (CD3)).
In settings where there is an Epic Meaning (Core Drive 1 (CD1)) to explore the world, this mechanic strengthens it.
Variations: Partial Fog. You know what the landscape looks like underneath the fog, but you don’t know if there are enemy units, cities, resources, etc.
The partial fog returns as soon as player units leave the area.
In modern RTS (Real Time Strategy) games (like Starcraft 2), single player missions begin with most of the map covered in Fog of War.
For multiplayer games, the map is covered in Partial Fog, to remove the possible advantage of one player remembering what the map looks like from earlier games.
Thanks to @Bo for this submission!
Fast Forward
So in this game called “4 Pics 1 Word”, I think I’ve discovered a new game technique that I call “Fast Forward”.
In the game, you’re shown 4 pics and a series of blanks below them — and you have to fill in the blanks to form a Word, which describes all the 4 pictures simultaneously.
Now sometimes, you can’t guess the word, and you get “stuck”.
In this scenario, after a few hours, the game sends a “push” notification to your phone, and automatically fills in the first letter (or first 2 letters) of the word.
In this sense, it takes decisive action on behalf of the player and “Fast forwards” the game.
I think this is a new game technique because although it may seem similar to “Glowing Choice”, “Desert Oasis” or “Blank Fills”, the element of the game ITSELF taking action is unique, and therefore, I think this may be a new game technique. Comments?
Thanks to @Mayur (winner of the latest Octalysis Gamification Food Heroes Design Challenge)
Tutorial
The key point here is that you are trying to do something, rather than just trying to absorb knowledge out of context.
Usually you will be constructing something from scratch, which can be an object like a homepage, or a more abstract result like a calculation.
Seeing the result of each action is CD3: feedback. Experiencing progress is Core Drive 2 (CD2).
Reduce friction by having the instructions as part of the product rather than in an external document.
How do you do tutorials for a class, in using external software (like Excel)? You show them your own screen on a projector, and let everyone complete each step before going to the next one.
This is a highly efficient way of training any skill, since it only requires a simple understanding to apply knowledge in the same context as it was received.
Applying knowledge from a different context — like a lecture — to a practical situation requires a more advanced understanding, which is more difficult and time-consuming to obtain.
Thanks to @Bo!
Red Flag
Indicates a new available action or information.
Drives high urgency with CD7 and Core Drive 8 (CD8) trying to avoid the obvious red flag.
Also Core Drive 4 (CD4) wants to maintain a clean interface and some CD2 for removing all red flags.
Thanks to @Slithus!
Join the Fun
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Related Reading
- The Octalysis Framework for Gamification & Behavioral Design
- What is Gamification?
- Mayur Kapur Wins the Food Heroes Octalysis Design Challenge
- The Strategy Dashboard for Gamification Design
- The Ultimate Guide to Gamification
- Books by Yu-kai Chou