Habitica, a life game

I’m a collector. I don’t mean of physical things, if you saw the lack of furniture in my house, you would understand. We spend our money doing things which leaves very little to spend on items.

When I say I’m a collector, I mean when I game. In Assassin’s Creed, I have to collect all the feathers, even if it means cheating and finding a map online because I’m missing one. For the Witcher Series, it was the armor pieces. I didn’t even wear most completed sets, but I had to do all the quests and kill the necessary monsters to acquire them.

Why am I wasting good blog space talking about gaming? Well, first of all, it’s the internet. Duh. Second, no one reads this anyway. So, I can talk about anything I want. Third, I want to share this game that has motivated me to complete real life tasks.

What is this magical apparatus you speak of?

It’s called Habitica. I am finally addicted to a game that is helping me, instead of devouring my time. It is free to join. Though I’ve been active for a couple months now and deemed it worthy of the $5 a month contribution to get a few gems.

How does it work?

1. HABITS: You look at your own life and decide what habits you need to improve and set them up as goals. For instance, I want to drink more water and less soda. Every time I drink a glass or bottle of water, I hit the plus sign which gives me points. Every time I drink a soda, I hit the minus sign and lose health.
2. DAILIES: Think about the things you do every day, or should do every day, and add them to this list. I have things like floss my teeth and take Jenna to the barn. I also have weeklies, since you can choose what days things need to be done, like the Boy Scout meeting and balance the checking account. When I feel unfocused, I glance at my dailies to see what I still need to do. It keeps me on track without having to prioritize everything, because I’ve already done that part.
   Every time I check these off, I get points and gold. If I don’t complete one by the end of the day, I lose health.
3. TO-DOS: Naturally, this is my favorite section. I adore lists period, always have. Otherwise, I get completely overwhelmed and can’t seem to do anything except play solitaire and blink.
   Lists give me something to check off which makes me feel like I have a handle on my responsibilities.
   If this is how your mind works too, you’re going to love this section. I have been able to keep my life balanced by setting up categories that work for me: family, scouts, writing, work, chores, etc. I have a couple items in each category. I try not to add another one until I’ve completed the previous, but sometimes a job won’t leave my brain until I add it to the list. It gives me good flow and I can forget all the other things banging on my door, because I’ve already chosen the tasks to be completed first.
   When I check one off, I get points and gold. There’s no negative for not completing them, except they’ll start to pile up, which is reason enough for me to check them off. Plus, you get many more points for these than anything else, which motivates me to get them done, because I need them.

Gathering points sounds pointless to me?

Ahhh, but that’s where the magic happens. Let me explain.

1. Pets: As you click things off, there’s a chance that an item will drop. You can get eggs, potions, and food. The potions hatch the eggs into specific kinds of pets. If you look at the picture above you can get a taste of the wide variety of breeds. My collection is pathetic compared to this one. But I don’t feel envious, because I’m having so much fun collecting them. I will get there, one checked box at a time.
2. Mounts: As you feed your pets food that dropped, they grow into mounts you can ride. Very occasionally a saddle will drop. That can be used to convert a mount immediately. It’s so satisfying to complete a task and get that last piece of food you needed to grow a pet into something you can ride.
3. Parties: Like most rpg style games, you can join a group and fight big monsters to acquire cooler pets and armor. That’s a picture of my group and you can see we’re currently battling a NowDo Nudibranch. Once we defeat it, we’ll received three Nudibranch eggs to hatch and open that variety for purchase in the store. More to collect!!!
   Being in a group also encourages you to get your dailies done. If you miss any, it doesn’t only hurt your health; it damages everyone in your party. Peer pressure can be good, you know.

Sounds like eventually you’ll have everything and it won’t work anymore.

Man, you’ve been burned, haven’t you? I suppose eventually I will fill up on pets and mounts. But see that nudibranch up there? He was just added as a new quest a few weeks ago. They’ve also put up summer themed armor that your avatar can wear as a costume. It all goes away July 31st so you have to get your stuff done and collect the gold to purchase all the pieces before they “POOF!”

Habitica does an excellent job of adding content and keeping the community active. There’s so much more, like you get to choose a class and max it out. Once you reach level 100, you can restart at level 1 and choose a new class. Seriously, I’m leaving out SO much of this game.

You’ll just have to logon to find out. Look for Deellena and I’ll wave!