Hi, maybe this helps others juggling multiple workstreams at once. Basically a vertical timeline with horizontal lanes per workstream.
Used to use a whiteboard, then excel was the only equivalent I could find, and ended up digitalising this setup - full disclosure.

Hey everyone,

A few days ago, I posted a diagram outlining areas of personal life, with the goal of creating a roadmap toward a lifestyle closer to a real "solarpunk" way of living, and a more resilient life system in the face of crises.

For now, I’ve divided the progression into 4 levels:

• Level 1: No reflection, typical globalized consumption. Very vulnerable.
• Level 2: Some awareness and attempts to limit consumption, but no reliance on healthy alternative systems.
• Level 3: Use of alternative systems that could be maintained even in a global crisis (war, extreme heat, etc.).
• Level 4: I consume what I produce or what my community produces, with backups in place.

Now, I’ll go into more detail about just one category: "Food", with an attempt to outline what progression could look like. I’ll use the same template for all other categories.

I’d want to make this more like a game. So it's become motivating and fun to track progress.

I think my next step will be to add a timeline, some goals, and quests to create challenges without making it too overwhelming.

I’m open to all other ideas or "quests" we could add to this food journey. For now I'm at the bottom of this list, but I guess it can go much further for people here who already reach the LV4.

Where are you on this scale ? What could be your current challenge or final goal in this area ? Or would you like to try and get into a game like this ?

Have a nice day!

Hi r/gamification community!

Our small 9-person indie studio in Canada runs a completely free, old-school location-based game called Orna: The GPS RPG. Think of it like a 16-bit fantasy world overlaid onto a real-world map - the only way to explore, find items, and progress is to physically lace up your shoes and walk your neighbourhood.

We recently hit a pretty big cumulative milestone: our player base has collectively walked over 20 billion real-world steps. 

We get messages every week from people who use it strictly as a stealth fitness tool to cure the boredom of daily cardio, hit their 10k step goals, or explore new parts of their cities. (The game has systems built in to help encourage ALL these goals).

But now we really want to see how real walking enthusiasts use it - and we want to buy you a brand new set of trainers as thanks for using up your shoes… 

We are cutting together a video to show new users how a simple app can transform a daily walk into an adventure, and we want to see the world through the eyes of real hiking/walking and gamification enthusiasts. (And get more views of great locations on the map!)

How to participate:

1. Download Orna RPG (it’s completely free, zero paywalls, zero ads).
2. Take it with you on your next morning stroll, dog walk, or hike.
3. Film a quick 15-to-60 second vertical video clip showing your the real-world trail or city street you're actually walking on.
4. If possible, screenshot or screen record what's showing in-game on your phone screen.
5. Submit your raw clip(s) to our team here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeZcTbtdLCtqItly_esm1bjd6OxfAStCf5fcBS9E8SPW6SOAA/viewform

If we feature your walking clip in our upcoming new-player showcase, we will send you a $200 gift card to a major footwear retailer of your choice (Nike, Adidas, Hoka, MEC, REI, etc.) to replace the shoes you’re 'wearing out' on the pavement or trail.

Let me know if you have any questions about how the GPS mapping or the in-game walking incentives work!

Over the past several months, I’ve shared Ascend here twice: once around launch and again when we reached 500 users.

The idea was simple:

What if progressing in the gym felt as clear and rewarding as progressing in an RPG?

Since then, Ascend has grown to 5,000 users across more than 60 countries, which finally gives us enough data to see whether the idea works beyond the initial novelty.

The retention data

Looking at users from the last three months:

• Around 24% of registered users complete their first real workout, which we define as a session lasting longer than 10 minutes.
• Of those users, 17% on iOS and 14.8% on Android complete at least one workout every week for their entire first month.
• When we remove the perfect-streak requirement and look at whether they return to train again in Week 4, retention rises to 25.9% on iOS and 22.9% on Android.

So we clearly still have an activation problem.

Most people who download Ascend never make it far enough to properly experience the system.

But once someone completes that first workout, a meaningful percentage continues training.

What the data changed for me

People usually begin with some level of motivation. The harder part is maintaining it while the results are still almost invisible.

You can train consistently for several weeks without looking dramatically different, lifting dramatically more, or feeling as though your effort is adding up to anything.

The progress is real, but the feedback is weak.

Games handle this differently.

A single action can complete a quest, increase a stat, earn experience, unlock something, or move you closer to the next level.

You rarely have to wonder whether what you just did mattered.

The question we now design around

We stopped asking:

>How do we gamify fitness?

And started asking:

>How do we make real fitness progress feel as visible and rewarding as it deserves to be?

Not by handing out meaningless points for opening the app.

Not by creating levels that have no connection to the user’s actual training.

The character in Ascend is not separate from you. Its stats are your stats. Its strengths reflect your capabilities, and its weaknesses show where your training is falling behind.

The character sheet is meant to become a living representation of your body and what it can do.

That means every part of the progression has to be earned through something real:

• Workouts completed
• Consistency maintained
• Strength gained
• Conditioning improved
• Personal records achieved

You are not upgrading an avatar.

You are upgrading yourself.

Progression matters beyond streaks

The difference between the two retention numbers matters.

17% never miss a week, but 25.9% are still returning and training by the end of the month.

That suggests the system is doing more than encouraging people to protect a streak.

It gives them something they want to return to and continue building.

Quest System 2.0

That philosophy shaped our largest update so far: Quest System 2.0.

We added:

• Triggered quests that respond to the way you actually train
• A Quest Log that records each week of your journey
• A character sheet that reflects your real stats and substats
• Progression for major lifts and conditioning
• Clearer visibility into where your character is improving and where it is falling behind

What comes next

We are now working on Apple Health and Google Health Connect integration, so more of a user’s real activity can seamlessly contribute to their character progression.

We are also continuously expanding the exercise library. Next on the list are kettlebell training and plyometrics.

Thank you

This subreddit gave Ascend some of its earliest users. So, genuinely, thank you.

Ascend is available on iOS and Android, and I’ll leave the links below.

I’m also happy to discuss the retention setup, the mistakes we made, the product decisions behind the system, or where I think fitness gamification still falls short.

Maybe fitness was always an RPG.

We’re just trying to make the XP bar visible.

My house had become a constant cycle of nagging. I’d ask for chores to be done, get ignored, and then end up frustrated and hovering. I realized I was stuck in a "parent-as-manager" role that I hated, and the kids were just tuning it out.

Instead of fighting about it, I decided to take a different approach. I sat down with my 11-year-old, and we started brainstorming how to gamify the process.

We ended up building a small app, ChoreQuest, to handle the tracking and rewards for us.

For me, the win wasn't just the app itself—it was the collaborative process of building it with her. We went from fighting over who cleans what to actually collaborating on the UI and the logic. Now, we use it daily with my 11 and 6-year-old, and the dynamic has completely shifted. It turned "chores" into "game mechanics," and the nagging has pretty much stopped.

I’m curious how other tech-minded parents here handle the chore struggle? Do you use a custom system, a paper chart, or have you built something similar?

If anyone is interested in the technical side or wants to see how we set it up, the app is here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.andriusdijokas.chorequest&hl=en

I’m happy to share what worked (and what failed) during the build process if anyone is looking for a project to do with their kids!

And we have like small video how it looks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_j6N2VSEpE

Long-time fan here. I got tired of boring habit trackers, so I built one that’s basically DCC-flavored: you complete daily habits (“quests”), build streaks, level up, and your crawler avatar evolves as you go. There’s a sassy System AI that mocks you when you break a streak (in true Cerberus fashion) and hands out achievements — including ones for failing. You descend “floors” as you clear more days, unlocking new playable characters along the way (skeleton, wizard, robot, goblin, celestial), and there’s a loot box system with rarity drops.

It’s not affiliated with Matt Dinniman or the books in any official way — just a fan-made project inspired by the tone and humor of the series. Built it myself in SwiftUI.
Looking for a handful of testers to poke holes in it before I put more time into it. It’s free, iOS only, via TestFlight.

Drop a comment or DM if you want in — happy to hear what breaks, what’s confusing, or what achievement text needs to be sassier.

Also wanted to note that all data is kept on device.

EDIT: The art in the screenshots above are only a placeholder. I am working with my daughter to do custom characters. They will be added into the app very soon.

Right now I only have it open to 25 people, but may expand if it fills quickly.

EDIT 2: Ok so I created a new build which now includes original character art, haptic, themes, more loot, scheduled tasks, and sound effects. Anyone is still welcome to join the tester group by accessing the following testflight link: https://testflight.apple.com/join/5mAwCGwx

1. We spend hours earning money.
2. Then we spend money buying phones.
3. Then we spend hours giving attention away for free.

That loop felt broken to me.

• So I made a rule: I built an app where Instagram, YouTube, games, etc. stay locked until you earn screen time by doing push-ups or squats.

>Entertainment should cost movement.

• If I want 15 minutes of Instagram, I earn it first.
• Weirdly, I scroll less now and exercise more.

I'm curious whether this would motivate other people or just annoy them.

try it out, App name Scrollfit

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.scrollfit.fitness&pcampaignid=web_share

I've been spending way too many evenings building a little browser game called BreachNoir.

The idea: "What if password security training didn't suck?"

You investigate fictional people using public clues (social media, usernames, habits, interests...) and try to understand how their password choices could be guessed.

No real targets, no breaches, no hacking — just fictional cases built around OSINT-style reasoning.

Full disclosure: the game is still a work in progress. The mechanics are there, but I'm still adding cases and trying to make them more creative, realistic, and inspired by real OSINT patterns (without turning them into boring "pet name + birth year" examples).

I'd love some feedback from people who actually do OSINT:

• Does the investigation flow feel believable?
• What techniques or scenarios would make this more interesting?
• What would make you say: "yeah, that's not how OSINT works"?

Looking for honest feedback, not just clicks.

https://breachnoir.com

Most habit trackers punish users for missing a day by resetting their streaks. I’m designing a low-pressure alternative:

• No Streaks: Missing a day does not delete progress.
• Visual Growth: Each finished study session adds a star to a monthly, procedurally generated constellation.
• The Goal: A visual record of effort, not perfection.

I want feedback on the gamification mechanic: Is removing the negative reinforcement (losing a streak) going to make it too easy to abandon the app, or is the visual reward of "completing the sky" enough of a hook?

​

I'm exploring an idea for an app that rewards you with a small automatic investment when you hit a fitness goal you've set — think a running streak, a strength milestone, a monthly gym target.

Trying to figure out if this actually appeals to people or if it's a solution nobody asked for.

Genuinely early stage, no product built yet — just trying to validate before I build anything. Would really appreciate 2 minutes from anyone in the 18–27 range, investor or not.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DJYQQ5C

Happy to share results/insights back in the comments once I've got enough responses

I'm considering building an app to allow people to count their golf ball juggles. I built a POC, but I don't want to waste time building it out if it might be just too much of a gimmick.

The idea is that people could compete for how long they can juggle a golf ball and have a leaderboard and maybe other things like challenging a friend and so on.

I just want to get an idea from people out there who play golf and enjoy golf if this is something they'd Actually use or maybe try it one time and then throw it away or if there's some potential here?

No idea how I will monetize it if I do decide to develop it... Roast it if you will.

Any feedback would be amazing!

I got tired of language learning apps feeling like homework, so I decided to try out something totally different. Instead of reading or tapping, you do something physical with your phone that matches the word's meaning. Tilt your phone to drink to learn the word for "drink" in the target language, shake it for "no", smile at the camera for "happy", turn the brightness down for "dark", and so on. It's not only fun, but also grounded in science. The idea is that tying words to body movements improves retention.

The app contains two modes: story mode where words and interactions are immersed in narratives, and a focused training mode for quick practice. 

Sensonym is available on iOS and Android: 

https://sensonym.com

I would appreciate your honest feedback.