HabitRPG: Turn your life into a fucking video game

HabitRPG: Turn your life into a fucking video game

I’m sure on the outside, it looks like gamers live in a complete fantasy world. I mean, who in their right fucking mind would think it’s alright to sit on their ass all day in front of the TV or computer and do absolutely nothing productive? I’m sure gamers don’t see it that way, but you can be damn sure everyone else does.

After all, unless you make games for a living -or write about them- you won’t make any money just by playing. Well, unless you play those shitty web based games that give you silly prizes, but that’s another story.

What if I told you that you could turn your entire life into a video game? Better yet, what if I told you that you could take everyday tasks, goals and accomplishments and implement them in an RPG based system? You would probably laugh at me for a bit, and then when you realized it was true you would shit your pants with happiness. I know, because I did exactly that!

It’s true, and I’m absolutely ecstatic about being able to report that. You can turn your life into a video game, and the best part is that the platform for doing so is exactly as you’d expect it to be!

Introducing HabitRPG

With HabitRPG you can take the most mundane tasks that you do throughout your day and ram a giant fucking polearm through their asshole. I’m sure you wake up every morning and brush your teeth? Do you make a pot of coffee and then drink a cup? Do you put your big boy pants on and get ready for the day ahead? Do you commute to work on a long ardous journey? Do you have a secret goal to punch your boss square in the face?

No matter what your daily tasks and personal goals are, you can enter them into the HabitRPG system. What’s particularly amazing about it, is that you earn XP (you know, character experience) and gold for completing tasks.

That’s right, you turn your entire day into a fucking RPG game. As you complete personalized tasks and goals, you also earn gold. The gold is actually used to purchase items and equipment, which are then be used to outfit your sprite (character). You can also use HabitRPG currency to purchase personalized rewards.

Want an ice cream cone from McDonalds at the end of the day? EARN THAT SHIT!

Want to watch your favorite episode of Game of Thrones? FUCKING WORK FOR IT!

You submit the rewards to your personal profile, and set a purchase amount. Then, when you’ve completed enough activities and boosted your coffers, you can purchase the rewards for yourself.

Several different activities

Tasks and activities come in three different categories: habits, dailies, and to-dos. Habits are basically perpetual tasks that you can complete or accomplish. Dailies must be finished once per day, and if you do not get them done in time they will harm your HP (game speak for health, duh). To-dos are one-off events that you enter randomly into the system, and then gradually work toward completing.

HabitRPG create daily

Habits are interesting because you can structure them to take away or add resources, depending on what’s going on. For example, if you set a habit as “taking the stairs” you can add resources for doing so. Adversely, if you decide to take the elevator instead of the stairs, you can take away resources. Progress for “habits” is tracked in realtime, so you can see your total lifetime patterns- at least until you delete the entry.

To-dos are progressive events, and the longer you take to finish them the more they harm your health. You can work on them in increments by tapping the “active” button. This tells the system that you are currently working towards the end goal. When they’ve been completed you can select the “completed” button, which rewards you with the proper resources.

Once you start working on all of your personalized activities it’s really hard to stop. Seriously, it gets addicting. Like, really really addicting. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Rewards and equipment

As you earn gold, you can use it to customize your sprite or character. You can purchase equipment like weapons, armor and more. Each item adds a specific boost to your profile, like a sword that helps you earn XP much faster.

HabitRPG rewards

Personal rewards can be a bit of a drag, especially if you don’t follow through. Then again, the only person to blame for that is you. They’re meant to be real life rewards that you allot yourself for completing tasks and activities. Who knows, maybe you can talk your significant other into participating for some extra… fun?

There are many ways to play

The web portal is by far the best place to play the game of HabitRPG life, because it offers a whole slew of additional features that the mobile apps do not. This is because the mobile apps are in their infancy, which means developers are still actively working on them. Over time, the two platforms will be even in terms of features.

For now, the web portal offers opportunities to purchase pets, assign tags to activities and it even includes a tavern/inn. If you go on vacation or get sick you can enter the tavern which keeps dailies and failed tasks from siphoning your health away.

There are also mechanics to establish a party or guild, but this can only be done from the official website.

It would be awesome to see…

I already touched on the fact that the mobile apps are not up to snuff in terms of features. Eventually they will be and the devs are working hard on that, therefore I’m going to stay away from that topic.

HabitRPG Android app UI

What I would really love to see is some kind of meta-game for the platform. Imagine if the system randomly generated quests based on your personal tasks and activities? What if you had to slay a baddie or a monster that wandered into your territory every once in a while? Let’s not even bother to discuss the idea of legendary and rare MMO style equipment. We could go on for ages about establishing a community based trade system or auction house.

What about if your party was broadened to include more characters, or even if you could link up directly with friends and share progress? The web portal does offer guild and party support, let’s see those concepts evolve into something more!

My head is swimming with ideas, some of which I should probably reveal to the devs and I’m sure I eventually will. That’s one of the best parts about HabitRPG, the platform devs are open to suggestions and you can share them any time.

I’m always a stickler for a well-supported product!

Why the fuck are you still here?

No seriously, why the fuck are you still here? You just read all of that, you already know how awesome it sounds. Go check it out!

You can find the HabitRPG website here, and you can find the official Android app here. An iOS version is in the works and it’s coming soon. You can also take advantage of unique APIs which help to integrate support with third party tools, like the Google Chrome browser extension which rewards you for being productive while browsing the internet.

Fuck yeah! That is all.

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