Games have this fascinating power to invite players to become better at... beating the game. I like how after repeatedly smashing a damn Orc a few times I am magically more efficient at well smashing the damn Orc. It feels like I'm accomplishing something even though nothing is really happening to stuff that actually needs to be finished. But it's the same feeling I get when suddenly I notice I'm understanding a movie in a new language when a year before I could barelly read the subtitles. A year before? That's not very encouraging. Games are constantly reminding me how awesome I am with all them level ups and fancy items. It's not very fair against the feeling of hey 'I'm better than a year before' feeling.
Games have several mechanics designed to encourage you to keep trying:
- Competition. You can tell who of the people you know are doing better than you. It's a solid number. You have level 85 at Alchemy while Mike has only 40 and you both started playing at the same time. You're the man. Whereas Steve is a loser no-lifer for having level 90.
- Solid milestones. Quests in games have ponctual objectives. You need to get a sword, talk to someone and collect a number of blue potatoes. What next? There's always a next.
- Skill level. You know when you got better at something even though you're not sure why. It doesn't take several months to notice some progress.
The list goes on and on but my question is:
Is there any method teaching how to convert life tasks in quests, skills and other concrete numbers that can be compared to someone else's progress? Something that has a smaller gap between achivements but are somewhat universal.