How to gamify a book

or how I wrote a book about gamification

It is sometime in July in a small German town called Schw?bisch Gmünd. The summer is warm and the last students are leaving the building, including me. With my bachelor's thesis under my arm, which is a book of almost 500 pages, I smile towards my uncertain future.

But this one feeling that some of you know only too well makes my smile widen - this indomitable confidence that I have discovered something great for myself. Despite the many doubts of others who didn't quite understand my theme, who didn't know why Elisa and I as designers dedicate ourselves to the theme of games. And why the hell the whole thing is so close to the buzzword GAMIFICATION.

What does design have to do with games and why is creativity so difficult?

Why do you first have to do something useless to ignite a flash of inspiration and why do people waste so much time on something as useless as a game?

What if the answer to all this is so simple and banal that it is hard to explain?

BALANCE

Well, maybe you thought the word game or gamification was coming here. You thought wrong :) Because both can only be good if there is a "perfect" balance - of rules and freedom, love and hate, knowledge and belief, interactivity and default.

And a game often achieves this balance very well. A medium that is more than just a waste of time. That is exactly what attracted me to dedicate myself and my knowledge, which I am, to the topic of gamification.

Why gamification, why no other word, why not invent a new one, or even abuse it. Quite simply because none of this would help. It would only create more confusion in the chaos.

I love chaos, but I also love order - that's why I'm opting for balance here, too, and thus creating my very own play space into which I'm now taking you.

GAME CHANGING

So I wrote a book, but not just any book, but a book about how I see gamification, or rather, how I see play in relation to creativity and business. Somehow, you would most likely expect me to write a method book about gamification, because after all, I advise companies in exactly this area. And yet I decided against doing just that.

Instead, I have written a book for people who want to look behind the curtain. For the nerds among us, for the people who think outside the box. People who are curious, who want to playfully discover new things. Playful doesn't automatically mean child's play, but can mean so much more than just making something easier.

But there was one thing I didn't want to be deprived of. Gamifying the book itself, or at least applying a few mechanics.

Get the book in German:

https://amzn.eu/d/iDil64Z

Get on the list for the English version:

https://forms.office.com/e/LPBB66WEmn

?? ATTENTION SPOILER!??

If you still want to discover the book for yourself you should stop reading here. I won't reveal everything in detail, that will come in another post, but, enough to take away the joy of discovery if necessary.

How to gamify a book?

THE COVER: It already starts with the cover. Sure, I could have chosen any cover, but I designed it myself and throughout the design I incorporated little gamification elements - here the main part was curiosity, nostalgia and discovery. It's like a hidden object picture, with so many references to nerd culture that it's an Easteregg (hidden reward) in itself. Both of my covers are based on characters familiar from gaming and nerd culture. One is a sunset, the other the rising and it has so much hidden knowledge and content on its own that there is an extra post about this too. Why, why and what it all means. But the second cover is yet to be published, so there's just a little hint here too! It's about my absolute favourite character and has to do with my middle name - DENIZ or abbreviated D. I'm curious to see who finds out :)

THE CONTENT: Instead of letting a book be a book, I set it up more like a game in itself. A prelude, which is my foreword, where it's more like a trailer, a prologue to a game, how it came to be, what's in it, and a little guide so it's clear what to expect when you read it. The main part is then the "game", from the tutorial, to the last level, in which there is like a final boss, namely my opinion :) After that it continues, but more for those who want to discover more, learn even more about the game and absorb even more knowledge. The book doesn't end after the main part, you can just read it some more. Of course, only if you want to.

Instead of chapters, I have levels :)

THE PROGRESS: Of course I wanted to take the reader on a journey, on the journey of their own progress, and so my book has page numbers as well as a progress bar, at least for the main part. from 0% to 100%. The individual levels have a level up where you get learning points, these are more like skills. This is then something like + 1 Charisma, + 1 Curiosity etc. These are different for each chapter/level and sometimes there is even a small item.

THE EASTEREGGS: And of course there is no shortage of Eastereggs and other trivia. And there are plenty of them. There are many small and big Eastereggs hidden in the book - and depending on how much you follow me and my journey, or how much you know about the nerd universe, you will discover them, or you will overlook them :)

A book is also always a journey to oneself. We always read books with our own wealth of experience, background knowledge and understanding of things. That's why I love that this book is so multi-layered, just like the message in it, because one person will read it very differently from another. If you see a designer as more than just a person who builds websites, then you read the book completely differently. Just like people who understand various references differently than others.

Yes I love my work and yes I had to bring it into the world in exactly the same way and that's why it was important for me to design as much as possible myself in this book. Because it is a part of me, a part of my soul and I wanted to make it accessible to you somehow.

And so this book is so much more than just some great method book, it is a path, a way of seeing, a manifesto.

Yours

Jay

P.S. Well, do you feel like reading it yourself?

Then get the book in German:

https://amzn.eu/d/iDil64Z

Get on the list for the English version:

https://forms.office.com/e/LPBB66WEmn