Disclaimer
The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent anyone else's view in any way, including those of my employer.
© Copyright 2007
The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent anyone else's view in any way, including those of my employer.
© Copyright 2007
I’m writing a whitepaper on Facebook apps for work (Mediasauce.com) so I have the perfect excuse to poke and prod at many of the more popular Facebook add ons. There I was minding my own business, taking notes on book list apps, quiz apps, photo posting tools etc when I found Pets, a fun app that mimics Dungeons & Dragons type character leveling with cute fluffy bunnies and all of your Facebook friends. I secretly feel rather lame liking this app so much. Partly because it’s such an obvious time-wasting sucker of an app and partly because it’s sponsored by Hot or Not which I feel is about as vain and vapid as the internet can get second only to some navel cam website.
However, as I’ve mentioned before, games have that awesome quality of being intrinsically motivating. The bunny levels up, gets new equipment that you can try on for better armor, more damage etc. Supposedly, there will be a way to pit your bunny in a heated battle against your friends’ bunnies soon. I need to be ready!
Go try out the Pets app and leave a comment here. Do you find it motivating? Are there qualities that keep you clicking or do you think it’s lame? I can’t stop wondering what qualities of such apps could be leveraged for learning and training. What if I was as motivated to learn some new piece of software or to study for an exam/certification? How can we integrate the fun of Pets into more valued learning?
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Your little critter takes a back seat to George (http://www.blogschmog.net/archives/1046). He’s aiming for level 23 so he can don his Alien armor that came free with registering with Hot Or Not (for the record, I don’t use that at all but am afraid to dump the app for fear my armor will disappear before George wears it).
There are diminishing returns on leveling now. It took a lot of spare time of clicking to inch up to the current level, and the gap to the next one is twice as big. I found I completely stopped doing more than poking him for a few XP when I visit my own profile.
Peacenik, my greenbit, has leveled without actually fighting anyone. He, too, is facing a practical ceiling on that experiment, as I can only poke him once per profile page load myself and need others to make the trip to keep him going up in experience. He’s got a nifty Batman outfit, again courtesy Hot or Not.
It has been a fun app to watch develop, as they added a second area for battles that don’t involve insects. Still waiting for the head-to-head duels, but the variety of gear is impressive and fun to personalize your critter in a meaningful way. I love the app.
oh my god, seriously, i played this years ago and i wanna play again
what is the name of the app?? anyone? or link to it?