It uses mechanisms, mostly from games, to motivate users.

However it is not a game

Super better is a tool that helps people to achieve

goals.

the creators deliberately avoid even calling it “gamified”, because of the negative connotations of

the word.

The creator opts instead to say that they consider it to be “gameful design”.

When the creator found herself experiencing a setback, as a result of a concussion that didn’t

heal properly, she used her 10 years of experience as a game designer to turn her

recovery in to a game.

She came out with Super Better

Super better is a framework built around your motivation. It places goals and other game elements around it that you can use to strengthen it.

Super better is unlike other adventure games.

It operates using quests, which when completed, award you points.

However as the game is entirely imagined by the user, with enemies, quests and power-ups things internal to the user, the game is more like a

log book accompanying an adventure and suggestions for thinking.

Super Better is neither a game nor a gamified application. Super Better is a tool to help you achieve goals.

A Game is an activity separate from regular life; Super better

is something that to work needs to be integrated in to real life.

Gamification is the application of game mechanisms to

activities outside of a game, like progress bars for completing a social network profile.

Super Better does not integrate itself or impose apparent

elements over your activities.

Super Better labs reject the concept of gamification.

“SuperBetter offers an alternative to gamification. Instead of taking the psychological hooks and operant conditioning from games, we use their

deeply satisfying properties – things like agency, emotion, and immediate feedback - to help people do what they really want to do: feel better, reach their goals, connect with others, and live with meaning. We

call this a gameful approach to design.”

The big idea here is that super better does not aim to incentivise action using extrinsic motivation, but provides a platform for people to explore

their own intrinsic motivations.

Bartle’s game grid is a framework for looking at how games are designed to appeal to specific audiences.

The “x” axis runs from “players” to “world”.

The “y” axis runs from “acting” to “interacting”.

People are players, doing anything with real people puts you on the left side. In contrast dragons are typically game elements, rather than other player, doing anything with them would be either acting on or interacting with the game.

We’ve inserted sample actions.

On the graph there are 4 types of players who can be appealed to by altering game features and therefore the relative size of each area of the graph.

Tipping the balance in order to appeal to a certain audience is merely a matter of increasing the types of features that appeal specifically to one user base.

Challenges

Glitches and Easter eggs

Weapons

Communication

Looking at the basic features, it’s immediately apparent that the game is designed deliberately to not attract people who want to act out on others, ie. there are no features to kill anything

The most important feature of the game is that it allows the user to act of their world, this forms the bulk of the game, as in most games of this type.

While Super Better is marketed as a solution, built from the blood, sweat and tears of its

creator, it is not unique.

Other similar games and alternative models are out there, popular, and gaining acclaim

fast.

These fall in to the two main categories of:

and

The Nike+ fuel band is a gadget for measuring your fitness.

Nike standardises activity patterns and turns them in to an energy rating called “Nike+ Fuel”

Nike provides the facility to create localised leader boards with either their friends, or for people to join public ones.

Re:mission is an educational game which improves outcomes. It addresses the importance of: • Compliance with oral chemotherapy regimens and other

prescribed medications • Prompt reporting of symptoms and side effects • Proper nutrition to increase the body’s ability to fight

cancer • Anxiety, nausea, and pain management through breathing

and muscle relaxation exercises Through randomised control trials it has been found that re:mission improves: • Treatment Adherence • Cancer Knowledge • Self-Efficacy

Created by Diabetes Hands Foundation and Joslin Diabetes Center with support from Boehringer Ingelheim. Various missions help improve diabetic outcomes. The user is given points for completing missions, such as: • Reducing salt intake. • Leading a more active lifestyle. • Taking the stairs instead of the lift. The game uses a form of “operant conditioning”* in order to alter users behaviour. This is a good mechanism for inciting short term change, but not long term. As soon as the user is removed from the system they would no longer experience the stimuli of the changes made.

*the conditioning of voluntary behaviours through a system of rewards and punishments.

BiLAT is a game developed to simulate the real life situations that soldiers face every day.

The problem the US army was experiencing was that

soldiers were very well trained for combat situations, and knew how to use a gun, but not how to efficiently deal with the mediation and convening of meetings they would be expected to do on a daily

basis with local leaders on the ground.

The game guides the user through a series of situations.

All situations are effectively researched with people

on the ground and real situations that have happened are referenced.

Syrum is the new game, to be released soon, by Boehringer Ingelheim. Although not strictly a serious game, gamification of a process, or anything with a specific learning objective, it’s a pretty major milestone for Pharma because it is the first real, fully fledged social game that any company in the industry has released. Syrum falls in to the context of serious gaming. It educates people about drug development.

Super Better Labs is also not the only lab experimenting with using games for good. Companies, Universities, and organisations

involved in serious games, learning games and gamification.

http://www.playnormous.com/ http://www.gamesforhealth.org/

http://www.seriousgamesinstitute.co.uk/ http://www.rtassoc.com/

http://ict.usc.edu/

While Super Better labs dispute their categorisation as such, they have created something that looks a lot like gamification

to any observers.

In the same way as anything else claiming to be gamification, it inserts a “game layer” over the rest of the world, for users of the game to use as a reference and guide for their activities.

Yes, the game is different to other pieces, because it does not begin and end with set missions and the mechanisms are not

from some stale “playbook”.

The creators are correct in drawing a line in the sand, because the concept is stale and it does differ because this gets users to think differently, designing their own challenges, and narrows

its appeal to those who are likely to be changed and motivated by the experience offered.

The game has a nascent community of followers and is gathering media attention.

Although Super Better approached the wellness game paradigm in a

different way to most, allowing users to customise their experience and the game itself, Super Better is one of many.

Ultimately it’s longevity will depend on whether users are successful in

achieving their goals, and whether they choose their more general model over the more specific and prescriptive models out there in both serious

gaming and other solutions using gamification.

telephone +44 (0) 20 7148 6825

mobile +44 (0) 7912 275 066

email daniel@nitro-digital.co.uk

Contact:

Dan Winkler Business Analyst

address 13/ 14 Archer Street, London, W1D 7BD website www.nitro-digital.co.uk