Hello! I'm Tom. I'm a game designer, writer, and programmer on Gunpoint, Heat Signature, and Tactical Breach Wizards. Here's some more info on all the games I've worked on, here are the videos I make on YouTube, and here are two short stories I wrote for the Machine of Death collections.
By me. Uses Adaptive Images by Matt Wilcox.
Rich pointed me to a post putting forward the concept of Massively Multiplayer Productivity, and I haven’t been able to find anyone who’s actually come up with a formal system for how it would work. The concept is that, in order to give the menial tasks you do in real-life the same addictive quality as the menial tasks in World Of Warcraft, all you need to do is assign experience-point rewards to them. Your To-Do list becomes your Quest Log, and every few thousand points you level yourself up – you have become a superior human being by getting things done.
So all it needs is a fair system of assigning experience points to the different kinds of things life requires you to sort out, and some markers to indicate when you would level up. I suggest:
| Quest Type | XP |
| Making a phone call | 250 |
| – that involves persuasion | +250 |
| – to someone you hate | +250 |
| Filling out a form | 100 |
| – and posting it | +50 |
| – and losing it | –100 |
| Physical labour | 250 |
| – that takes more than half an hour | +250 |
| – that takes more than an hour | +250 |
| Going to an appointment | 500 |
| – and resolving a problem while there | +250 |
| – and discovering you are terminally ill | +500 |
| Cleaning a room | 500 |
| – including removal of blood stains | +500 |
| Going shopping for groceries | 250 |
| Working outside of work | 250 |
| – for more than forty-five minutes | +250 |
| – just to get ahead | +250 |
| Doing someone a favour | 250 |
| – that takes more than half an hour | +250 |
| – that involves assassination or insurance fraud | +750 |
| Blogging | 100 |
| – about World Of Lifecraft | +150 |
Level-ups are awarded for the following XP amounts:
| Progress | XP | Reward |
| Level 1 | 500 | Consumption of an unhealthy food. |
| Level 2 | 1000 | Consumption of an expensive and unhealthy food. |
| Level 3 | 2000 | A frivolous purchase =< £5/$10 |
| Level 4 | 3500 | Home delivery for your next groceries purchase |
| Level 5 | 5500 | Immediate consumption of eight units of alcohol |
| Level 6 | 8000 | A frivolous purchase =< £15/$30 |
| Level 7 | 11000 | Moral absolution for one theft – past or future |
| Level 8 | 14500 | Home delivery for your next narcotics purchase |
| Level 9 | 18500 | A frivolous purchase =< £50/$100 |
| Level 10 | 23000 | Moral absolution for the contract-killing of one unwanted person |
And so on. (If you didn’t spot the pattern, you’re probably not geeky enough to need to turn your life into a MMOG in order to get anything done). Notice that you start at level 0, just to emphasise how worthless you are until you’ve done something.
Well, I’m level one already and I haven’t had breakfast, so I think a bacon sandwich is in order. Any suggestions for more quest types or rewards?