Habitica: How to turn your life into a video Game

I have an addiction. It’s an unusual substance, so I want to come on here and share it with as many people as possible.

So what is it? Methamphetamine? Marijuana? Cocaine? Heroin? 

Nope, in the last couple weeks I've been addicted to a drug that you probably use everyday without even realizing it: Habits.

Habitica👾

Between starting new projects like building a service - Essay Mending - learning how to program, or continuing my psych degree; my day becomes buried under to-do lists, assignments and daily work that is unavoidable.

In between all this work I tried to find a system to keep me focused - a sort of habit tracker.

“Making progress is satisfying, and…visual measurement comes in many forms, food journals, workout logs, loyalty punch cards, the progress bar on a software download, even the page numbers in a book; but perhaps the best way to measure progress is with a habit tracker.” - James clear, Atomic Habits

After scouring the internet for different trackers, I think I may have just found something really special, and it's because this one takes advantage of a concept called gamification.

What is gamification?🎮

Well to know the concept, we first have to understand the fundamental reasons games are fun; that being because video games or sports are directly routed into our brain’s dopamine system offering instant rewards after each action.

“Killed that enemy? Here's a new sword.”

“Do this quest and you will level up.”

Just won your soccer game? “Here's three points for the league table.”

This is why social media and gaming habits are easy to build and hard to break; they (unlike the real world) offer clear and instant rewards for each action we take completing the habit loop.

The problem with real life is that it's often unclear to see progress or rewards instantly; if you work out today you're not going to have six pack, just because you sit down and write for two hours doesn’t mean your book will be a bestseller; even something as simple as brushing your teeth, you don't see the results until months later when you visit the dentist.

“Behavioral economists refer to this tendency as ‘time inconsistency’ , that is, the way your brain evaluates rewards is inconsistent across time. You value the present more than the future…the best way to [fix] this is to add a little bit of immediate pleasure to the habits that payoff in the long run, and a little bit of immediate pain to the ones that don’t.

So how does an app like habitica fix all this? 

Well, it takes advantage of addictive elements in video games and routes them into your real life. 

Here are three ways it does this:

Dopamine Demon🧬

The app creates a gamified reward and punishment system for accomplishing your daily habits. Each time I clean my room or go to the gym, I can tap on the “gym” or “cleaning” habit, which rewards my character experience and a bit of gold; this creates a clear reward system for any activity in my life. By doing this the game accomplishes the most basic factor in building habits: providing a reward as close as possible to an action.

Similarly how habitica add’s rewards for doing habits it also has punishments for skipping them. If I skip a workout or miss a writing session my character takes damage, and enough missteps will end with them dying; resetting my progress by a few weeks. This simple bit of negative punishment provides enough incentive for me to break bad habits and stick to my useful ones. I know it sounds stupid, but trust me when you use this app regularly it eventually becomes like any other video game: extremely investing to level up and stay alive.

Progression📈

Aside from the instant gratification Habitica adds to your life, it also provides a way to see your progress. Just like traditional video games, in Habitica, each percentage of experience gets you two steps closer to leveling up and unlocking more skills, abilities, or items. The skills and abilities can change the way you go about defeating bosses, and the items allow you to own pets and grow them. This creates an addictive loop as it allows for more than one way to progress; “want to focus on growing your pets?”, “buying a new sword”, “maybe learning new magic”. It’s an endless carrot chase.

But outside of gamified progression, the game also tracks your habit streaks; tracking each consecutive day you finished a task. The app then reinforces it with extra points and gold per extra day. It's the equivalent of crossing off a box on your calendar every time you workout, and then seeing the progress over-time. Small changes that provide limitless motivation.

Social accountability👬

This mechanic is by far my favorite. So aside from habit gratification and tracking, Habitica adds more addiction by introducing your friends into the equation.

Early on, the game invites you to create a party or guild where you can go on quests with other players; in a party, everyone involved has to be as perfect as possible. If anyone in your group skips a daily - forgets to do homework or go to the gym - everyone takes the damage.

Adding in this one key detail escalates any motivation; when the game personally hits my character that always sucks, but having the whole party yell at me for skipping a writing session is a whole different issue. It's a sort of accountability factor; like having a gym buddy you never want to let down. Genius stuff.

The verdict💡

This is an incredible tool for anyone trying to be more productive, but struggling to find motivation. The whole app is really well thought out and I want to encourage anyone reading this to check it out. It's completely free, so come on, give it a try. And who knows, it may (like me) end up addicting you to getting work done.