About two months ago I signed up for Habitica, which according to the Habitica Wiki, is an open-source habit building program that treats your life like a Role Playing Game.
I spoke about Habitica briefly before last month, and so far, my experience has been positive. It has helped incentivise me to complete some essential items and make progress along with my goals. Enough so that I decided to take out a year subscription just to support the product.
It’s important to note that purchasing a subscription is not required for any part of the critical functionalities of Habitica. The only incentives for purchase add little value – like access to backgrounds or decorations. This, to me, was one of the things I liked about the product, in staying true to its purpose.
The critical aspect of Habitica is gamifying completion of tasks. The gameplay is tied to three main areas:
- To-Dos – these are one-time tasks or items to do that do not reoccur.
- Dailies – these are tasks that reoccur, whether daily, weekly, monthly or annually.
- Habits – these are habits that you want to build or change.
You gain experience points (XP) for completing items from these areas. You gain damage and lose health if you don’t complete all of your tasks or dailies in time, or hit some bad habits (-). As you gain experience, you level up, and the higher you go, the more XP you need to level up.
You also get coins that you can spend in the market place to buy items such as equipment or quests. If you have a subscription, you can buy gems to get other things, but remember that these don’t confer any advantage to the gameplay (won’t give you XP or boost your stats).
All of these act as rewards to keep you going, or punishment to keep you on the straight and narrow. This is all part of using the habit loop in habit formation. Of course, you could cheat and just check off items, but you’re only cheating yourself, and then, what’s the point?
There is a strong community in the background, both in developing the application (it is open-source) and the forums (called guilds). The guilds are a nice touch with many Habiticians (that’s what they’re called) helping out each other. I’ve never asked a question and not get an immediate answer.
There are other aspects of the game such as quests, parties and challenges that I won’t get into, but adds character to the game.
I suggest you give it a try if you’re looking for a new way to help achieve your goals.