How to Turn Your Boring Everyday Life into a Game with HabitRPG

What's the meaning of life? That's the age-old question; but can it ever really be answered? I mean, isn't life just a big game anyway? Perhaps, a game of inches?

Was that question just an excuse for me to embed the greatest movie speech of all time in this posting? Absolutely not.

There is reason why role-playing games are so popular—they blur the lines between reality and fiction (too a certain extent). While choosing to blast some in the face with a M-15 Vindicator in Mass Effect is not very life-like, the concept of making that choice and dealing with its aftermath is very much life-like.

Life really is a massive game of choices and consequences, the basic element of any RPG. And that's why I think HabitRPG is going to be a huge hit.

HabitRPG was created by Tyler Renelle in an effort to make doing daily tasks and reaching set goals more fun and interactive. It works in a system of goals and rewards. Level up as you succeed, lose HP as you fail, earn money to buy weapons and armor. Every goal you complete you will be rewarded with a token. These tokens can then be used to buy rewards and items.

For example, I hate flossing my teeth, I really do. So, I could create a daily task on HabitRPG for flossing my teeth. After a full week of flossing my teeth I will have earned 7 tokens. With these 7 tokens I can purchase a reward (which I create), like one bag of Wild Berry Skittles, to congratulate myself on a job well done.

Sadly, since receiving huge bumps from Reddit, the site has been going up and down due to unexpected numbers coming in. I was able to register, but then the site went offline for me. Many other folks had the same problem.

Nevertheless, the site is being worked on, and the developer of HabitRPG should be excited about all the interest already garnered for the game. There is also a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the development for iPhone and Android applications. More information about the project can be found on Tyler's blog.

Cover photo by Martin Backes