Congratulations to the winners of Gameful Challenge #1: Make it Better
Mar 18, 2011 at 1:06 am by Jane McGonigal
With over 100 entries into the first Gameful Challenge, we had our hands full (and brains full!) judging the bold new concepts and prototypes you invented.
THE CHALLENGE:
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” — Lord Kelvin
Pick something good that can be measured.
Make a game to improve it.
We encouraged challengers to make a game to improve at least one element of PERMA: Positive Emotion, Relationships, Meaning or Accomplishment in everyday life. Our winners did just that.
The judges — consisting of Awesome Board member and the Gameful founders — have finally played and analzyed ‘em all, and the winners are in!
Everyone who worked on the top 5 will be honored with an invitation to join the Awesome Board here at Gameful — where they can help design and judge future challenges, and plan the future of Gameful.
The Winner is…
The secret chat game About Our Hopes and Dreams by Robin Yang, Sara Thacher, Jon lePlastier, and Rob Jagnow
What we love about this game: It’s charming, builds real social bonds, and anyone anywhere in the world can easily play it online. This game set out to make a positive impact on social relationships… (putting the “R” in PERMA!)… and it definitely achieves its goal.
About Our Hopes and Dreams is a two-player game… so find a friend online and play it together today!
The AOHaD team joins the Gameful Awesome Board and wins $1000 for their great efforts. \o/ Fiero!
The Runner-Up is…
The charity fundraising Twitter game I Am Your Champion by A Terrible Idea!
Why we love this game: It’s quick and easy to pick up, it has the power to change the world (that’s the M in PERMA, folks!), and you can easily mod it for your own interests and goals. Also, A Terrible Idea did an amazing job analyzing the playtests and incorporating player feedback into ideas for the next iteration…. he has set a very high bar for future challenge entrants!
In addition to joining the Awesome Board, A Terrible Idea receives an one-hour brainpicking video Skype or phone call with the gameful founder of his choice. \o/ Double fiero!
The Gameful Favorite Award goes to…
Worship Prokra by David Calvo!
The Gameful Favorite Award means it was the game most beloved by the gameful community — as judged by the conversation it provoked, the number of plays it generated, and general adoration expressed. And we gameful judges couldn’t agree more. This game has tons of character, a little bit of strangeness, and a lot of potential to power up our everyday motivation to do whatever it is we want to do! (Let’s hear it for the A in PERMA!)
David will join the Awesome Board. \o/ Triple Fiero!
And finally, two more games round out the Top 5:
Fundraising adventure game Race to Win the Planet, a collaborative Gameful project led by Alexandru Ragalie and Anca Morariu! Be sure to check out the functional prototype for the race.
and
the complex interactive narrative geared toward energy efficiency, Energy Ops: Catalyst by Nicholas C. Lange. This game was perhaps the most ambitious undertaking of all the entries… and we found it perfectly mysterious and intriguing.
Finally, an Honorable Mention goes to the alternate reality game Shower Complex by Josh Shabtai — he missed the deadline by a few days, but we love his game and want you to know all about it.
And another Honorable Mention for the trading card game Phylomon, It’s in beta now, so be sure to check it out!
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Congratulations to everyone who submitted — your 100,000 monster treats will mysteriously appear in your treat bank when you least expect it. (The treat fairy likes to come while you’re asleep…)
What next? Join us for Gameful Challenge #2: OPERATION: END BOREDOM!
Just tried out “about our dreams” and I loved it. NICE WORK! Totally worthy of the inaugural Gameful Challenge. Congratulations and thanks for this great contribution to inter and intra personal connection and exploration!
Psst — Jane and co, would be great if the front page image was changed to this one(http://globalgamejam.org/sites/default/files/uploads/2011/10740/teamdream.png?1296509410) since the current one only features one member of the team!
Updated!
Hey, congratulations to the winners!
…And not only them, everyone who participated in this challenge did a great job. I spent a lot of time trying out these games by myself and my only regret was that my university projects prevented me from checking out them all.
By the way, it was really interesting to see that the winner project, “About our Hopes and Dreams” was the very first (and if I recall properly, the only one) which I commented directly. It had… something that caught my attention, although I have always preferred single-player games. It would be great if we could have a playtest session with the winners using this very game!
Thanks Julio! We would love to do a playtest session! Let me reach out to the other guys and see if there’s a time that would work for us
Holy Unexpected Recognition, Batman!
I am honestly shocked beyond the capacity for rational discourse. I’ll have to settle for “WOO-HOO!”, “Thanks you Awesome Board Members!” and “Wow.”
Clapping madly for all the winners, what an amazing group of talented monsters we have here, pure sparkling brilliance!