And what do the projects really become when you turn them into games?
What to turn into games
I have been asked many times what can be turned into games and what cannot. There were times when I thought that my personal life, such as spending time with my husband and children, would be unethical to see as a game.
My answer today is:
You can turn anything into a game. There is nothing you can’t turn into a fun game for yourself.
I am not alone in this opinion. The American academic and award-winning game designer Dr. Ian Bogost wrote a book with the following title, Play Anything. …
The “second chance” game elements and their benefits in supporting you to maintain the habits you want to keep
There is probably no adult person on Earth nowadays who doesn’t aspire to maintain a healthy or another beneficial habit. Healthy eating, exercising, reading regularly, and so much more have been on many people’s lists.
The challenge with maintaining a healthy habit
Many buy or create their own habit trackers. Some authorities in this area claim that after a sufficient period of practicing a habit, it can run all by itself because you feel the need — an “itch,” so to say — that you can’t give it up.
Even the definition of the word habit goes in a similar direction:
1: a settled tendency or usual manner of behavior
[Example:] her habit of taking a morning…
Sit back, relax, and observe your articles compete with each other in your stats and earnings.
December 22, 2020, was the last day of the past year when I published a Medium story in 2020. Before that, I tried various rhythms of writing and publishing here — a couple of stories a day, prescheduling for days and even weeks ahead, and other writing and publishing schemes.
The latest design of my publishing game on Medium was to publish at least one piece every workday. A published piece was either a completely new written and revised article or a reworked and sometimes extended excerpt from my already published books.
I stopped prescheduling stories at some point and haven’t done it until now. One of the reasons why I stopped prescheduling was the following. Writing, revising, and publishing a story — along with creating its headline, subtitle, and searching for the appropriated tags — felt like a level in my “writing and publishing game” on Medium. I didn’t want to postpone finishing the level. I wanted to make the best of it, finish it, and move to the next one. …
January 2021 Newsletter by Gameful Life
This is the second newsletter for my publication Gameful Life on Medium. A month passed, and somehow, both much and not much happened.
The paradoxical nature of life is crystal clear in such an experience of the time that passed.
I hope you stayed safe, healthy, and well, and I also hope you had beautiful holidays either on your own or with your loved ones, again either having them close to you or communicating with them online or on the phone.
In my family, we had both — visited some family members for Christmas and welcomed some friends on New Year’s, while staying within limits recommended by the Danish government, and chatted live with others. …
And its first entry.
A note beforehand: there is no affiliation relationship between me and the creator of the two products I mention, and, you could say, review positively in this article. I simply enjoy them and show how I apply one of them while turning writing and my life, in general, into fun games.
A fellow teacher at a local writer’s school here in Denmark contacted me in December. She had a few questions about games and game design. I suggested meeting for a virtual coffee.
What followed was very fun. One of the characters in her work-in-progress was a game designer, and she wanted to make a “reality or authenticity check” with someone who had to deal with game design regularly in their work and life. …
Burning out before starting
I took a cooldown phase from my “Publishing on Medium” game during the holiday season. The marketing game had a cooldown phase too. I wrote an article about cooldown phases and publishing on Medium longhand and typed a part of it in a draft. But I didn’t manage to finish working on it today, and it doesn’t look like I will.
I thought I could come back into the active phase of my writing and publishing game on Medium with ease. But I was mistaken.
I found myself overpowered and under pressure.
I’ve thrown myself outside of the game by putting too much pressure to publish a full article today and do it every workday, as I did before the holidays, even if there is much more to do due to several online meetings (including coaching I will be giving) and homeschooling for my two children this and next week. …
And how to do it gamefully
Our brains love cycles and repetitions. This is clearly visible at a young age. But also, when being adults, our minds find a resonating, often uncomfortable thought and repeat it again and again, looking at it at different angles.
If we are sad, we wonder why we are not happy, when others are, if we are upset, we get even more upset for daring to have stepped into an upset. If we notice that we judge ourselves, we judge ourselves for judging.
And then we judge ourselves for judging and judging before that, and in general, being such a judgemental person. “I thought I was long over it!” …
By remembering and following the “turn-your-life-into-games” gameplay loop
Writing and publishing on Medium is a game. Medium is also a massively multiplayer online game and platform.
Every topic you address is a part of your writing and publishing on Medium game. Or rather a game collection.
Every article you write and publish is part of this game collection. And the process of creating each of them is a game collection in itself.
So inside each of these Medium-story-games, there are many mini-games. One to come up with the topic you want to write about. …
Looking at the famous uncertainty principle from a writer’s point of view
I have a rational mind, or at least I used to think so for a very long time, even when it seemed to behave very irrationally at times.
This rational mind tries to understand and be sure about everything that I have to deal with.
Of course, it was and still is quite often utterly annoyed, confused, and scared when something unexpected happens, that is impossible to grasp. When an event seems to have thousands of reasons. OK, if not thousands, then at least a handful and not just one. Yes, my mind was and is often searching for one reason, one way, one exact definition. …
A data module and a scene — the not so unlikely “doppelgängers.”
Are you one of the many people who think there is a huge gap between technical information and storytelling?
The recognition of storytelling’s value and benefits is growing more and more in the business and management world. After a brief research online, I discovered at least several books having in their titles the words “storytelling” and “data.” Here is one of the articles listing nine of them:
Even so, we might still not see that connection between technical information, especially between technical manuals, and engaging stories.
Why does it make sense to search for such a parallel?
There are two main…
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