Game Mechanics and Psychology
We have discussed gamification history, methodologies, and understanding your users, but what about the actual gamification mechanics? What things can you, as a product development professional, implement to make your product more engaging? The short answer is a lot!
We will discuss several popular ways game mechanics are used outside of games in this chapter, but this is not meant to be an exhaustive list. The best way to understand how to create fun is simply to get out and try some things. This chapter will give a lot of examples of where that exploration may start.
In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:
- Reward systems
- Progress tracking
- Narrative and storytelling
- Social engagement
- Game psychology
