by Annie | Aug 24, 2011 | Game Design
I played a game today. No, it wasn’t Monopoly, Minesweeper, or Street Fighter. A few days ago, I got an Amazon gift card from my parents-in-law. So today, I played the Amazon gift card game. Curious? Here’s the high-level pitch: Play as a shopper trying to buy as many different items for a new apartment as possible while staying within the gift card amount. Rules: – Items must currently be in stock. – Shipping cost for each item cannot exceed item cost. – Bonus points for items that can be shipped together. The Result: I started out by filling up my shopping cart with over 3 times the amount of the gift card. Lots of balancing, compromising, and trading later, I ended up purchasing 8 different items for various rooms of my new apartment. In the process, I rediscovered some things I already had, prioritized my shopping list, and got a better idea of what I was looking for. The Takeaway: Anything in life can be a game. Look around you. Take any task, set a specific goal, add a few stipulations and a potential reward, and voila! You’ve got fun waiting for you around every corner. Don’t believe me? Try it out. Here are some daily tasks to get you started: – Waiting for the bus – Washing dishes – Going grocery shopping – Paying bills – Making the bed Anyone can be a game designer. Fill your life with games, and you can play even the most ordinary moments...
