EPIC WIN
Posted by jaked | Filed under just4fun
i don’t know about you but i’ve had about enough of all this “winning” nonsense. charlie sheen is bat-crap crazy and i just wanted to get that out of the way.
now on to some winning (doh!) of my own. as i’ve written about before, i have a problem. i am an achiever. i love achievements, badges, stickers, and goals. although i have completely given up foresquare (mostly because well really other then getting badges, there really didn’t seem to be much of a point.) i continue to strive to check boxes, get achievements, and get points that really don’t matter. i mean i’ll sit and play the same stupid angry birds level for 30 min just to get all 3 stars.
why is this? i think most of it is kind of a personality thing. i really am goal orientated, it’s just setting goals that i struggle with. google apps and my iphone has been very helpful while i’ve been in the process of raising support. mostly because i haven’t had a computer since august. (until recently) between google docs, google calendar, and evernote i’ve been able to manage meetings and contacts with relative ease. but we could always do better right?
this is where epic win ($2.99 apple appstore) comes in. epic win is an iphone app that turns productivity into a game. and believe me, most days i’d choose playing a game to checking things off my to do list in a heartbeat. in the vein of role playing type games, (like fallout 3, mass effect, final fantasy etc.) epic win takes my to do list and transforms each task into either a feat of strength, a feat of stamina, a feat of intellect, a feat of social, (jury is still out on if this is really a feat) or a feat of spirit. when creating the “quest” you set the level of epicness which in turn determines how many experience points i receive upon completion.
a cool feature that the app has is that it will sync with your google calendar. turning events, meetings, and due dates into tasks and quests. you only have to sync and then update the item with the level of epicness and category. a nice feature. so i know you’re probably thinking “if you spent as much time just doing things on your list as entering them and messing around with silly apps like this then you’d probably get more things done.” to that i would say “nuh uh!” but that’s just me.
as you complete items on your to-do list or quests your character simulates little battles and levels up, unlocking loot and furthering your journey. so probably to most people they feel enough pride in being able to check or cross off something from their list but there’s just something about filling up a progress bar and leveling up that motivates me. only like 3 people are going to get this reference but leveling up in halo 3 really didn’t matter to me at all… but when they instituted that progress bar in halo reach i did challenges and whatnot just to fill that stupid little meter.
so i probably haven’t used the app long enough to determine if this will be helpful in the long term (my character is jake the masculine, a level 2 stooping dwarven nerd-do-well) but i see this as being a fun, nerdy, way to assist me as i get things done. now i’m going to go cross off writing a blog post and get a little closer to level 3. see a game trailer below.
UPDATE: apparently a similar minded app exists on the windows phone 7 platform called noborizaka.
currently listening to:
the devil and God are raging inside me by brand new
