(10-28) Achievements

This week, I extensively studied different achievement types and their purposes.

The definition of an achievement is a goal set by either the player, or something hard-coded into the game. The purpose of achievements is to increase the "life expectancy" of the game. That is, encourage the player to want to play for a longer period of time. Having an effective achievement system tied to our game and Canvas would lead to a successful study.

There are many types of achievements. Following are the types I believe would be beneficial to our system.

Challenge: Achievements that add difficulty to the game, or encourage a non-conventional play style. We would not want to encourage anything non-conventional, but we could have a challenge such as "score a 95 or higher on 5 quizzes in a row", that would unlock a rare card for the game.

Tutorial: Achievements emphasizing mastery of basic game mechanics. This would be incredibly useful for our system, for then we could have achievements such as "upload 5 assignments on time" or "log into the game every day for a week".

Progress: Achievements formed by mastering certain gameplay mechanics. In our system, this could apply to achievements such as "maintain a 90+ grade for a month", "finish the semester with an 80+", and "submit a total of 20 assignments on time".

Multiplayer: Achievements focused on your progress compared to other players. This one would be difficult, but could take the form of some kind of leaderboard.

In order for achievements to be effective, you have to have a way to visualize them. In our system, we would have a location within canvas and the game in which users can see what achievements and cards they have unlocked.

Next week, I will finalize exactly what our achievements will be, and continue trying to pull data from the game server into our system.