Let me open up by saying I’m sorry a review didn’t go up last week. My internet went out on me just last Monday, I wasn’t able to get it working again, so I had no option but to wait til I got back on campus and could reliably connect again. So, again, sorry for the lack of posting, despite, you know, promising to post throughout the holidays and all that.
But, hopefully, all that is in the past now! I’m back and better than ever, and this week I’ve got a review of something that, while not a game per se, is a neat little doodad that is perfect for all of you that are plugging away on your New Year’s resolutions. It’s called HabitRPG, and it turns the task of making or breaking habits into a fun little hobby.
Above is a pic of my account on HabitRPG, and, pretty much, what you’re seeing here is what you get. The idea is that you are making yourself into an RPG character, with the biggest change being that there are no monsters to fight. You gain and lose help by following, or failing to follow, the to-do list and various habits you insert for yourself into the game.
Your various “quests” are sorted into Habits, Dailies, and To-Dos, and each effect your experience points and hit points in different ways. But the main idea is that getting stuff done and following good habits will give you experience points, whereas shirking your responsibilities, breaking your good habits, or slipping into bad habits, causes you to lose hit points. Hitting 0 hit points causes you to fall back on your experience points, so you effectively have to start your current level over again, and the only way to recover is to level up. At the same time, you accumulate coins for doing well on all of your habits and responsibilities, which you can spend either to upgrade your character or on little rewards for yourself.
This is another game that I’m having sort of a hard time approaching, because it’s so different. It’s not solidly within an existing genre, so there’s not a lot to compare it to. But, I feel that whatever it’s doing, it’s doing it well. I’m the kind of person who’s promised myself multiple times that I’m going to accomplish something major, that I’m going to make some major change to my lifestyle, then quitting in frustration before I even get started. The thing that I’ve found makes HabitRPG so effective is that it’s an effective planning tool for something that a lot of people overlook, and that’s a way to quantify your little achievements and small progress. Ways to encourage long-term changes like this aren’t exactly common knowledge, but HabitRPG takes that kind of thing and encourages you to apply it in a way that’s fun.
I’m not going to bother with the normal wrap-up on this one, because it’s kind of hard to encapsulate this “game” in a couple of bullet points. Just know that I give it my complete recommendation. It’s helping me a lot personally, and it’s the kind of tool that can keep you working towards your life goals, offering you just the right kind of encouragement along the way.
Button Mashing on a Budget 