Games, SuperBetter
It's been a long time since I wrote anything in this blog--since Oct 15th, Blogger helpfully tells me. Now I'm writing today and I'm expecting that I'm going to write every day either in this blog or another for some time.
Why? Because I've tumbled on some amazing resources that resonate. Yes, yes. I know. You've heard that before. I know. And I'm not even going to tell you "this is different" because you've heard that before. But I'm going to tell myself this is different, and see if I can follow through and make it different.
What's provoked this post are the words and thoughts of Jane McGonigal (PhD), who describes herself as world renowned designer of alternate reality games.
I first tripped over her at TED, giving this Ted Talk. She starts her talk saying:
Jane's TED talk led me to her website, which in turn led me to a longer talk On Productivity, a "Sunday Sermon" sponsored by an organization I'd never heard of before: The School of Life. They also have a talk by David Eagleman that I'm noting here, hoping that I'll remember to see it later.
Among the game that Jane has created is SuperBetter, a game that she originally created for herself when she was recovering from a concussion that left her unable to read or write. When recovery by normal means slowed, she decided to create a game to help her recover, and later put the game online. She describes the idea behind SuperBetter in a video here.
A SuperBetter game is a hero's journey to achieve an "epic win." You enlist allies to help you, identify bad guys to battle, list power-ups that give you energy, and quests to ultimately take you to your goal.
I signed up, I'm on my first journey, enlisted my first ally, listed three power-ups (which I know are great energizers and I stupidly forget to take advantage of) listed several quests, and have been given a few more by the SuperBetter engine. One of my quests is to write at least one blog entry a day. day 1. Here it is, that's checked off for today, and SuperBetter gave me a high five for doing that.
Interestingly, one of Superbetter's assigned quests is "pick your next battle." The idea of actually choosing to fight my "bad guys" at a time and place of my choosing rather than letting them ambush me is exhilarating. We'll see how log the fun lasts, but for now, I'm enjoying Superbetter.
If you are interested in becoming an ally, you can write me at superbetter at mike-wolf dot com telling me about yourself, and perhaps I'll invite you to join me on my quest--or tell you how you can start your own.
Why? Because I've tumbled on some amazing resources that resonate. Yes, yes. I know. You've heard that before. I know. And I'm not even going to tell you "this is different" because you've heard that before. But I'm going to tell myself this is different, and see if I can follow through and make it different.
What's provoked this post are the words and thoughts of Jane McGonigal (PhD), who describes herself as world renowned designer of alternate reality games.
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| Image via Wikipedia |
I first tripped over her at TED, giving this Ted Talk. She starts her talk saying:
Right now we spend three billion hours a weekplaying online games. Some of you might be thinking, "That's a lot of time to spend playing games. Maybe too much time, considering how many urgent problems we have to solve in the real world." But actually, according to my research at The Institute For The Future, it's actually the opposite is true. Three billion hours a week is not nearly enough game play to solve the world's most urgent problems.She goes on to explain how games and gaming can change the world and how she's using games to make that happen. People lose themselves in games, she says, because reality is broken, which turns out to be the title of her book. Reality is broken because it doesn't give most people what what they most need: PERMA--Positive Emotion, Relationship, Meaning, and Accomplishment. And games, especially social games, do. And that is why we like them.
Jane's TED talk led me to her website, which in turn led me to a longer talk On Productivity, a "Sunday Sermon" sponsored by an organization I'd never heard of before: The School of Life. They also have a talk by David Eagleman that I'm noting here, hoping that I'll remember to see it later.
Among the game that Jane has created is SuperBetter, a game that she originally created for herself when she was recovering from a concussion that left her unable to read or write. When recovery by normal means slowed, she decided to create a game to help her recover, and later put the game online. She describes the idea behind SuperBetter in a video here.
A SuperBetter game is a hero's journey to achieve an "epic win." You enlist allies to help you, identify bad guys to battle, list power-ups that give you energy, and quests to ultimately take you to your goal.
I signed up, I'm on my first journey, enlisted my first ally, listed three power-ups (which I know are great energizers and I stupidly forget to take advantage of) listed several quests, and have been given a few more by the SuperBetter engine. One of my quests is to write at least one blog entry a day. day 1. Here it is, that's checked off for today, and SuperBetter gave me a high five for doing that.
Interestingly, one of Superbetter's assigned quests is "pick your next battle." The idea of actually choosing to fight my "bad guys" at a time and place of my choosing rather than letting them ambush me is exhilarating. We'll see how log the fun lasts, but for now, I'm enjoying Superbetter.
If you are interested in becoming an ally, you can write me at superbetter at mike-wolf dot com telling me about yourself, and perhaps I'll invite you to join me on my quest--or tell you how you can start your own.
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