Why, yes, if you couldn’t tell by the post about my patronus, I am a geek. It seems weird to say that for a few different reasons (the whole “fake geek girl” business and how geek is chic these days), but it’s the truth. I wear my label proudly.

My own achievements-based motivational schemes, modeled off of Xbox.

So when I heard about HabitRPG: Gamify Your Life, I got really excited. First of all, it reminded me of my own attempts to keep myself motivated at work, but it’s better than my own version of gaming motivation (see image to the right) because it’s automated. Not having to keep copious notes on how many times I’ve done a certain task so that I can then tally points and gain achievements later? Yes, please!

Let’s jump right in. The concept of HabitRPG is that you are playing your way through life. You gain experience through completing different tasks that you’ve assigned yourself, and you lose hit points by failing to complete certain tasks or by performing the opposite habit than the one you are trying to maintain. (Like taking the elevator instead of the stairs.)

As you gain experience, you also earn gold and silver which can be used to purchase rewards for yourself. You choose your rewards and how much each one will cost. For me, I have frozen yogurt set at 10gp and a movie from my Netflix queue set at 45gp. You can also use your earned income to purchase weapons, armor, and potions that aid you in your quest. Below is a screencap from the website of my profile.

Note the different colors. For habits, dailies, and your to do list, your items will have different colors. These show items which are more pressing to accomplish–like calling my grandma–and which items I’ve done well at–like drinking plenty of water. Also note that I have “negative” xp right now. I believe the reason for that is because I leveled up last night but I failed to complete all of my daily tasks, which dropped me down so now I need to make up those points before I can continue to level up. (I could be wrong about that, but that’s my hypothesis. If you discover otherwise, please let me know!)

Here is a picture of everything you could buy in game to help with xp gaining and hit point saving. Weapons typically help with xp boosts and armor and potions help minimize hp loss. Ooo…aaah… Very exciting. 😉 So far, I’ve only purchased weapons as I have managed to do ok with not screwing up on losing hit points.

Something else to note before I get too far ahead… As you gain xp and level up, items will drop. One of these items is eggs, another is hatching potions. You can combine eggs and potions to create different sorts of animals. For example, I mixed my fox egg with a desert hatching potion, and now I have a desert fox animal companion. (There is an achievement for unlocking all 90 animals.)

Above, you’ll see the flipside of the site, which is what will show up when you click on your avatar. Voila, your profile, any groups you want to join, your inventory, stable, tavern (where you can “rest” while on vacay and not worry about losing HP), achievements, and settings. As you can see, there’s a lot to explore.

Also, there is a client/app you can install on your Android smartphone so that you can track your progress as you go instead of needing to go to the website itself. (Note: unless you’re directly connected to wifi, instead of 3g, I have found the client to be a little buggy.) Below are screenshots of that as well.

So does this look like something you might enjoy? I know for me, I’m still getting used to it–only downloaded it earlier this week–and I am still customizing my habits and dailies. Let me know your thoughts!