Gamification Mechanic Monday: time bound challenges
To level the playing field or to give players more hope of achieving a next level, game designers often build in time-bound challenges, which can earn you extra points or very specific rewards. This past weekend Candy Crush set a challenge to crush as many green candies as possible, in return it earned power up gold bars, additional combinations at various milestones. The key to achieving these rewards was to play more often in order to crush 1000, 5000 or 10,000 green candies to earn these reward.
In gamification designs this may be a good technique to give players a chance to catch up or level by giving them extra powers, points or potential reward. In an employee well-being program, we looked at this technique to have people add a bit of extra exercise to their team totals over a long weekend where the temptation to let go was higher. It helped individuals to stay focused on their team goals and encouraged them to take some action as opposed to completely switch off.
Where have you seen this time bound challenge technique used?
