Habitica Crossover #1: Introducing how I manage my life using it

(Note: the image above is a combination of screenshots from the original Habitica desktop website. This is not an official promotion for the game, as it is simply an original blog post written by a Habitica user to share how he plays and enjoys the game.) 

What is Habitica?

Habitica is a productivity role-playing game that allows users to create to-dos, dailies and habits to help them get things done and improve their lives. 

There are features such as quests, rewards, equipment, pets and potions in order to provide extrinsic rewards. According to its website, these provide instant gratification that helps users to feel good about getting things done and have more motivation to work. 

There are also features designed with accountability in mind, so that players can stay on track in fulfilling their goals. Players can team up in parties, or join dedicated communities about particular topics, life goals or hobbies that are called guilds. This makes it feel more like a role-playing video game.

My way of playing Habitica

Like most players, I create those normal tasks and habits using Habitica and categorise the important ones using labels. However, I have some ways of using Habitica that are different from many players. 

Habits - they can become part of your motivation system instead of using it for specific tasks

To reward myself for doing well, I can set specific rewards like bonus experience points using positive habits. Likewise, I can penalise myself for undesirable behaviour by setting it as a negative habit. This is because I find myself to be more driven by actual consequences rather than the things I can buy with the gold in the game. In this case, what I use to motivate myself is the actual progress I get in the game - basically the level, health, experience and gold my avatar has - because they represent the amount of time I spent being committed to whatever I want to do in my life. 

Examples of how habits can serve as rewards and punishments 

I have reused this approach in the form of rewards. Asides from using gold to get real-life rewards, I can also use the rewards section to design fines to penalise myself financially for bad behaviour. In this way, there will be a stronger deterrent against skipping my dailies, habits and to-dos. 

Rewards - they should be reserved for something special and not be confused with breaks

This is the most difficult section of Habitica to use well for me, since the only thing it does is to make me poorer in terms of gold. Is it not strange that you still have to purchase rewards with gold which you painstakingly accumulate by checking off your tasks and habits? I mean, I don't see very much of this in real life.

Thankfully, Habitica allows me to set free rewards. Using this, your very productivity can be turned into vouchers that you can redeem for something rewarding!

Also, I have used the rewards section to add additional rules for in-game rewards. For instance, I have set the amount of gold to pay for the taxes and fees before I get equipment or use the drops, which includes pet feed and hatching potions. These will deter me from using in-game rewards so readily since there is a chance that I will be so immersed in it that I will lose my productivity. 

Free rewards and in-game rewards to make the game feel more realistic

Do-it-yourself - achievements and challenges

Since Habitica needs money to run itself, a lot of the good stuff can be pricey. Some even requires gems, which are to be purchased (unless someone else gives you gems) or a subscription.

I was depressed about how basic-looking the things without needing much gold or money are, so I decided to make my own achievements and challenges.

For the challenges, after designing them, I have used Habitica to keep track of what I need to do and give me rewards. Once I am ready to share about my challenge, I will post it under the "Life Challenges" series of this blog. This blog can be an effective medium for me to record my usage of Habitica and what I can do to make it more fun for myself. 

To keep myself more motivated, I tried designing achievement titles and badges for myself. It does help me to stay in the game longer and have the world being mesmerised by the things I came up with myself. However, for now, the badges don't look very nice, so I am considering learning pixel art to make the style of the badges more consistent and to increase the visual appeal of the badges. 

Self-made achievements

Interaction with other players

The most fun thing about Habitica is that you can find communities you like and grow together with other players! 

There was this 'Inspiration Station' guild that I joined because I liked the idea of sharing inspiration for others to feel better about themselves and working hard. But the primary reason why I joined was because of the challenge rewards - I can finally unlock those parts of the games that require gems and make my avatar look better. Until then, I will be working really hard to get the guild leader's attention.

For some of the guilds I joined, such as the 'Life Hackers' guild, it was to get some inspiration on how to be more productive and how to make Habitica more fun. At times, I check out the wikis other than the guilds for inspiration too!

I have also sought help and contributed feedback in guilds and the tavern. I was bursting with pride and joy when I saw my tip on the 'Use Case Spotlights' guild getting featured on the Habitica blog! 

My tip getting featured. And yes, "synitheia" is my username. It is Greek for "habit". Why Greek? Because it sounds deep and it also sounds like a legitimate name.
Link to the post: https://habitica.wordpress.com/2020/06/25/use-case-spotlight-adapting-to-life-changes/

My progress

For now, thanks to the tasks and challenges I am coming up with, as well as the blog I am writing, I can churn out enough work to ensure that I level up every week. I am also having fun trying out as many features of Habitica as possible and be creative in playing the game.

For my future plans, I intend to make this feel more like a role-playing game by creating a world made of pixel-art and have nice storylines to keep me engaged in the game. This was partly why I dabbled in world creation using the Free Frontiers story series in the Story Creation Challenge I set up for myself.

Do keep looking out for the "Habitica" label, and stay tuned for more posts detailing my exciting journeys in Habitica!