Getting started with Playlyfe

Why should I use Playlyfe?

Playlyfe aims to empower people to use gamification as an effective strategic tool. It does this by breaking down the technical barriers that often hinder the adoption of gamification.

Playlyfe allows you to go from a game design on paper to a completely functional app in a matter of minutes. It gives you immense flexibility and power to design, prototype and revise your game design over time.

Leadership and management teams can use Playlyfe to create effective gamified solutions. Development teams can use Playlyfe to create or extend their own gamified solutions.

Creating a Game

We call all gamified systems a Game on Playlyfe. This does not mean that they are the sort of games you play everyday like Angry Birds or Candy Crush Saga.

A Game on Playlyfe is a system of processes, teams, metrics and rules which come together to engage a player in an experience. The experience could be anything from visiting a website to doing work in your office.

Playlyfe acts as the game engine behind these systems. It takes care of all the hard stuff like tracking scores, team structures, player progress and maintaining real-time leaderboards.

Types of Games

Playlyfe supports two types of games:

  • External An external game can take many forms. It could be a simple website with a gamified loyalty program. It could even be a completely customized gamification product for a particular problem domain. Eg: Fitness workout gamification. External games need a dedicated development team to create the user experience for the game from scratch. Hence, they tend to be more expensive to develop and maintain than native games.

  • Native A native game is an automatically generated application hosted at http://games.playlyfe.com/your-game-id. You can theme it to reflect the unique style of your game. Currently, Playlyfe models the user experience as a simple tracker application. This is useful is many scenarios where the actual player experience takes place in the real world itself. Eg: volunteer activities in NGOs.

Creating a game on Playlyfe is simple once you've registered and signed into the platform.

  • Go to the Playground tab in your profile

  • Click the Create Game button

  • Fill in the Title of your Game and give it a unique ID which will identify it from all the other games on the platform.

  • Select what type of game to create:

  • Hit the Create button and Voila! You created a game!

  • You should see a page like the one below listing out all the basic settings of your game.

Components of a Game

Now that you've created your game on Playlyfe, let's have a look at the different components of a Game. There are 4 main components to every game on Playlyfe:

  1. Metrics

    Metrics are what you measure within a game. They are used to track player performance and behaviors. Eg: Points, Badges, Achievement, etc.

  2. Processes

    Processes allow the game designer to structure the player journey. You can use processes to control the order in which players can perform the tasks available to him.

    Processes can model common activities on a site like answering questions, voting, sharing, etc. They can also model more complex choice driven story based quests and challenges.

  3. Teams

    Teams define a subset of players within your game. You can use them in combination with lanes to allow or restrict actions with processes for different types of players.

  4. Rules

    Rules state conditions which when fulfilled by a player affect the player in some way. You can use them to award achievements and level up players when they get a certain amount of points.

Designing a Game

There are many ways in which a person can go about designing a game on the Playlyfe Platform. Two possible ways of doing it are:

  • Top Down

    In this approach you first think about the concept of the game as a whole and then iron out the details. This is ideal in scenarios where there is no previous structure or way of doing things.

    You begin by defining the different types of players within your game using teams. You then create a player journey for each type of player using a process. Then you figure out what sort of metrics you want to measure and tweak your process to award scores for different activities. You can then move on to higher levels of game-play using mechanics such as levels and achievements.

  • Bottom Up

    The bottom up approach works well when you want to integrate gamification in an existing system.

    You begin by defining the metrics that you wish to measure and affect. You can then define rules aimed at maximizing the impact of the metrics using achievements and levels. You then structure processes which engages the player around those metrics. Finally you can define your teams and then tweak your process to breakup functionality based on player types.

You can also use a gamification framework to assess and improve the design of your game. We recommend checking out Yu-Kai-Chou's Octalysis Framework which is one of the most comprehensive.

Game design is a process that is never quite finished. You need to keep trying out different things and figure out what works and what doesn't. Often, after a certain period of time you must expand your game by adding new challenges and content to keep your players engaged.

We designed Playlyfe to make the design process as painless and flexible as possible. You can go in and change any part of a game at any time until you get it right.

In this guide we will be describing a bottom-up approach to designing a game.

Defining your Metrics

Metrics are one of the most fundamental components present in most games. It often represents the key performance indicators which measure success.

At present there are 3 types of metrics:

  1. Point

    This is the simplest and most common type of metric found in most games to count scores since times immemorial.

    Point metrics have 3 constraints:

    Name Description
    Minimum The smallest possible value you can assign to the metric. [default: 0]
    Maximum The largest possible value you can assign to the metric. [default: Infinity]
    Starts With The value at which the metric starts if it does not exist on a player. [default: 0]

    You can also create a leaderboard from any point metric. You can model level systems by combining point and state metrics in a level rule.

  2. State

    A state metric indicates a particular state which the player is currently in.

    State metrics have 2 constraints:

    Name Description
    States A list valid states.
    Each state has the following properties:
    Property Description
    Name The name of the state
    Description A brief description about what the state indicates
    Image An image which represents the state
    Additional states Allow the use of more states besides the ones already specified in the states constraint [Default: false]

    You can use it to say different things about a player. For example you can use it to show if a player is alive, dead, banned, etc. Many games have a level system of some sort. In these systems the level a player has represents his state. You can combine state metrics with point metrics in level rules to create various level systems.

  3. Set

    A set metric represents a group of unordered items.

    Set metrics have 4 constraints:

    Name Description
    Preset Items A list allowed items in the set.
    Each item has the following properties:
    Property Description
    Name The name of the item
    Description A brief description about the item
    Image An image which represents the item
    Max The largest possible count value of the item in the set
    Additional items Allow the set to contain more items besides the ones specified in the items constraint [Default: false]
    Maximum Count The largest possible count value for any additional items in the set. [default: Infinity]
    Maximum Items The largest number of unique items which may exist in the set

    There are several ways you can use sets.

    • You can use set items as badges to represent a player's progress in various aspects of your game.
    • You can use set items as tags or inventory items on a player.
    • You can combine set items with achievement rules to make player achievements.

Metrics represent the system of measurement that exists within your game. The value of a metric on a specific player is what we call a score.

Creating a Metric

  • Click the Menu button
  • Select Game Mechnics and click Metrics.
  • You will now see a listing of all the metrics in your game. Click the + button at the top of the metric listing in the sidebar to create a new metric.
  • Fill in the details of your metric and click Create

Leaderboards

You can use leaderboards to drive competitive behaviours within a game. Playlyfe creates a leaderboard for every point metric within a game. Each leaderboard has the complete list of players in the game ranked according to their scores.

TODO: Leaderboard image

Award Achievements & Levels with Rules

A rule checks a player against a set of conditions. The rule performs a specific action on the player if they pass all the checks of the rule. The action taken by the rule depends on its type.

At present we have 2 types of rules:

  1. Achievement

    An achievement rule awards a specific achievement to a player when they pass all it's checks.

    It consists of 2 parts:

    Name Description
    Achievement The Achievement itself, which must be an item of a set metric. A player cannot receive an achievement if he already has it. An achievement rule does not remove an awarded achievement if a player fails any check at a future time.
    Checks A list of checks. A player must pass all checks to gain the Achievement. Each check represents a condition on the score of a player.

    You can organize achievement rules in complex hierarchies using checks. Each tier of achievements can check if the player was already awarded any achievements on the previous tier.

  2. Level

    A level rule determines the level of a player.

    It consists of 3 parts:

    Name Description
    Base Metric A point metric which is checked to determine the level to be assigned. The minimum and maximum constraints of the base metric determines the threshold value range.
    Level Metric A state metric whose states represent different levels.
    Levels An ordered list of levels. Each level consists of a state and a threshold value. A player achieves a level when they cross the threshold for the previous level in the list.

    You can create an experience based level system using level rules. You could also use them to show different reward tiers within a game.

Creating a Rule

  • Click the Menu button
  • Select Game Mechnics and click Rules.
  • You will now see a listing of all the rules in your game. Click the + button at the top of the metric listing in the sidebar to create a new rule.
  • Fill in the details of your rule and click Create

Model your organization with Teams

In games there are several types of players. Some players have certain access and privileges which others do not.

In business scenarios, this is often a reflection of how we structure the organization itself. In the case of a web community it could be reflection of how we organize the community into moderators and admins.

Whatever the case maybe, Playlyfe allows you to model the power relations between your players using teams. Within each team you can create a hierarchy of roles, assign permissions and control who can create an instance of the team.

Inside a live game, players can create an instance of the team within the constraints you have defined.

Having certain roles in a team grants a player the ability to do lane tasks within a process that were otherwise unavailable.

A team consists of 6 parts:

Name Description
Creation Settings You can define which players can create an instance of the team here.
The available options are:
Value Description
Players You can specify certain requirements a player must pass to create an instance of the team.
Only Me You can also make it possible for only you the Game Designer to create an Instance. This is desirable when you wish to create admin teams which normal players cannot create. You can create teams of this type using Game Bootstrapping.
Joining Channel You can control how players can access an instance of this team.
There are three possible settings:
Value Description
Invite Only A player must be invited to join the team instance by an existing member. The team instance is not visible to players outside the team.
Request Based A player must request to join the team instance. An existing member of the team instance can approve the join request. The team instance is visible to players outside the team.
Free To Join Any player can join the team instance. The team instance is visible to players outside the team.
Team Limit You can specify the largest number of instances of this team that a player can create in a game.
Team Size Limit You can specify the largest number of team members allowed in a team instance
Max Teams Per Player You can specify the most number of instances of this team that a player can be a part of.
Permissions The team structure in Playlyfe is a hybrid role-rank based structure. Each team can have many roles. Every role has a rank associated with it starting from 0. It also has an associated set of permissions which define the capabilities of the role. Each permission gives the corresponding roles special privileges in the context of the team.
The permissions currently available to be set on a rank are:
Permission Description
Lock The role can prevent any new players from joining the team.
Peer The role can invite/approve a new member to join the team with a role of the same or lesser rank.
Assign The role can invite/approve a new member to join the team with a lesser ranked role
Leave The role can leave the team. Only an admin player with a higher ranked role can remove a player from a role not having leave permission.

Creating a Team

  • Click the Menu button
  • Select Game Mechanics and click Teams
  • You will now see a listing of all the teams in your game. Click the + button at the top of the team listing in the sidebar to create a new team.
  • Fill in the details of your team and click Create

Craft the Player Journey with Processes

Processes are the most powerful component available to you in a game. They make it possible to create complex and flexible player journeys. The way you use processes depends on the type of gamified system you wish to make.

At its core a process is a way of structuring your players interactions with the game. You can create a simple linear sequence of activities for a player to do or complex choice driven quests.

There are several benefits you can reap from well defined processes within a game:

  1. Sketching out the player journey as a process forces us to think through the actual player experience. We can put ourselves in the player's shoes, and that helps us design better experiences.
  2. Processes enable you to change the player experience and see the impact immediately in the game.
  3. Breaking down an activity into many short steps enables the player to receive feedback on each step. This increases the probability of a player making it through the entire process especially if its long.
  4. Processes make it easy for us to find out which step of a activity causes people to get stuck or give up. We can then use that insight to improve the player experience.
  5. Finally processes enable you to create external games much faster. Playlyfe takes care of all the complex state transitions and player progress tracking.

Creating a Process

  • Click the Menu button
  • Select Game Mechanics and click Processes
  • You will now see a listing of all the processes in your game. Click the + button at the top of the process listing in the sidebar to create a new Process.
  • Fill in the details of your process and click Create

The Process Builder

  1. Add Node Adds a new node to the process

  2. Delete Nodes Delete nodes & flows from a process. Select the nodes/flows you want to delete then click the confirm delete button to complete the deletion.

  3. Lane Manager Add/Edit/Delete lanes in the process

  4. Process Settings Edit the process settings

  5. Property Inspector The Node Inspector can be used to inspect the currently selected node/flow.

  6. Canvas The Canvas shows the complete flow of the process. It can be dragged and panned to get a better view of your process.

  7. Breadcrumb A breadcrumb navigation showing where you are within the process. This is only visible if you navigate into a sub-process.

Types of Nodes

A process consists of a set of nodes connected together with a set of flows. There are 4 types of nodes that you can create in a process:

  1. Task

    These are the bread and butter of a process. A task can be any activity that you wish your players to perform. All the other nodes are just helpers to control the order in which tasks can be performed. A task can have only 1 incoming flow and 1 outgoing flow.

    Basic Task Properties
    Property Description
    ID A unique ID for the task within the process/sub-process
    Name A name for the task
    Loop Count The number of times a player can loop over the task. [default: 0]
    Lane The lane to which this task belongs
  2. Sub-Process

    A sub-process is almost the same as a process. You can use sub-processes to model complex processes which are big and difficult to visualize. You can also use it to break down the player journey into different modules.

    Basic Sub-Process Properties
    Property Description
    ID A unique ID for the sub-process within the process/sub-process
    Name A name for the sub-process
    Instance Key A unique key which identifies this sub-process from all other sub-processes within the process. You can use this to access a particular sub-process within a complex process from the API.
    Loop Count The number of times a player can loop over the sub-process. [default: 0]
    Lane The lane to which this sub-process belongs
  1. Parallel Gateway

    A diverging parallel gateway has out flows > in flows. They allow a player to perform many different task in any order he/she wishes (ie. in parallel).

    A converging parallel gateways has out flows < in flows. They allow a player to proceed along the out-going flow only after a player completes all incoming flows. It provides a way of synchronizing different paths of progress before moving forward.

    Basic Parallel Gateway Properties
    Property Description
    ID A unique ID for the gateway within the process/sub-process
    Name A name for the gateway
    Lane The lane to which this sub-process belongs
  2. Exclusive Gateway

    A diverging exclusive gateway has out flows > in flows. They allow a player to perform exactly one task from among many available alternatives.

    A converging exclusive gateway has out flows < in flows. They allow you to merge progress along different paths together.

    Unlike the converging parallel gateway an Exclusive converging gateways allow players to proceed along it's out-going flows before they complete all incoming flows.

    Basic Exclusive Gateway Properties
    Property Description
    ID A unique ID for the gateway within the process/sub-process
    Name A name for the gateway
    Lane The lane to which this sub-process belongs

Connecting Nodes

Once you have created a node you can connect it to other nodes to create a flow.

  • Hover your mouse over the node you wish to connect.
  • Click the connect icon which pops up. If the connect icon is not visible it means that you cannot connect the node to any more nodes. This could be because it is already connected to the largest number of allowed nodes.
  • Select the node you wish to connect to from among the highlighted nodes.

Connection Restrictions

  • Tasks/Sub-Processes can only have 1 outgoing flow and 1 incoming flow
  • Gateways can be either converging or diverging.
    • Diverging gateways have 0 to 1 incoming flows and 1 or more outgoing flows
    • Converging gateways have 0 to 1 outgoing flows and 1 or more incoming flows

Start Nodes

All nodes without any incoming flows in a process are Start Nodes. This means that when a player starts a process the first actions which are available to him are the ones belonging to Start Nodes.

You can also restrict the type of players who can create an instance of a process by setting a lane on every Start Node of the process. A player cannot start a process if he is not eligible to play any of the start nodes. You can use this fact to control which players can start which processes.

Common Flow Patterns

We illustrate some of the most used flow patterns below:

  • Linear Flow

    You can use this flow to model a linear sequence of activities which the player must perform.

  • Parallel Split Flow

    You can use this flow to model many choices available to a player which the player can perform in any order.

  • Exclusive Choice Flow

    You can use this flow to model many choices available to a player out of which exactly they can perform exactly one choice.

  • Synchronization Flow

    You can use this flow to synchronize several paths that a player could take at a common point before moving forward.

  • Merge Flow

    You can use this flow to merge several paths a player could take at a common point. It allows the player to move forward without finishing all incoming paths.

Advanced Flow Patterns

  • Cancelling Merge Flow

    You can use this flow to merge several paths a player could take at a common point. As soon as the player reaches the common point, all tasks on incoming paths are cancelled. Players cannot complete a cancelled task.

  • Approval Flow

    You can use this flow to model a simple approval mechanism. In the diagram, only candidates of the admin lane can perform the approve task. When a player finishes the approve task it resolves the scoring actions on the work task.

Sub-Processes

Sub-Processes are an effective way to manage arbitrary complexity within your processes. Sub-Processes are like small processes within a larger one. There are a few things you need to know to work with sub-processes.

Task IDs in Sub-Processes

Playlyfe considers a sub-process can add a brand new context for your tasks. This means that two different sub-processes can have tasks with the same IDs within them. This can be useful for repeated tasks across many sub-processes.

Navigating Sub-Processes

  • Hover your mouse over the sub-process.
  • Click the expand icon which pops up (1).

You will now see the internal details of the sub-process. You can see a breadcrumb which appears at the bottom of the showing the root process at the leftmost end and the subprocess to its right. You can click on any part of the breadcrumb (2) to navigate to that sub-process.

Lanes

Lanes are a restricting mechanism used to divide the tasks within a process among different types of players. This allows you to co-ordinate complex activities between many different teams of players.

Each lane defines the conditions which a player must fulfill to become a candidate of that lane. Candidates of a lane are eligible to perform tasks/sub-processes/gateways belonging to that lane. Any player who does not meet the lane requirements cannot perform the task/sub-process/gateway.

Creating a Lane

  • Click the Lanes icon in the process builder.
  • Click the Add Lane button.
  • Enter a name for the lane and specify the requirements to a player must fulfill to become a candidate for the lane.

You can use lanes to control which players can create which processes using start nodes. You can combine it with deferred score resolution to create an approval mechanism.

Rate Limiting

Playlyfe allows you to control the rate at which any task or sub-process within a process can performed. You can use this to create an effective an anti-gaming mechanic which prevents players from abusing your system. You can also use it to effect scheduled daily, weekly or monthly tasks.

Rate Limiting a Task/Sub-Process

  • Select the task/sub-process you wish to rate limit.
  • Click the Timed tab in the property window of the node.

  • Click the Limit Rate button and specify the rate you want to cap the task/sub-process at.

Trigger Emails

Triggers emails enable players to interact with a process through their email.

Setting up a trigger email

  • Select a task/gateway and go to the Notify tab
  • Click the Set Trigger Email button

  • Write the trigger email template and notification message.

You can customize the email itself with simple tags to provide contextual information.

Tag Description
[[user]] Complete user name
[[user:first_name]] User's first Name
[[user:last_name]] User's last name
[[actions]] Available actions that the player can take. If the trigger email is set on a task/sub-process the successive node is the only possible action. If it is set on a gateway all available outgoing flows are possible actions that the player can take.
[[global_logs]] Recent game logs (level + achievement logs) from the last trigger
[[local_logs]] Recent activity logs in this process from the last trigger
[[date]] The date when the mail is sent

Playlyfe sends an email whenever a node with an trigger email becomes available. Playlyfe determines the recipients of the email as follows:

  1. If any performers of the process can complete the task they receive a trigger email.
  2. If Playlyfe finds no recipients then the team mates of process performers who are capable of completing the task will receive a trigger email.
  3. If Playlyfe has still not found any recipients then it sends no trigger email.

The recipient of a trigger email can act on it by replying to the mail with a number specifying the action they wish to take on the trigger.

Scoring

A task/sub-process can have multiple scoring actions which take place when they are completed. Scoring actions change the scores of the player who performed the task/sub-process.

Creating a scoring action

  • Select the task/sub-process you want to add a scoring action to.
  • Click the Scores tab
  • Click Add. If you do not have any metrics defined in your game you will see a button to create a new metric here instead.
  • Select the metric you wish to change
  • Input the details for the change.

Advanced Scoring Mechanics

Besides the normal simple scoring mechanism, Playlyfe provides you a number of advanced scoring mechanics which can be used to make complex gamified experiences.

Chance When a player completes a task the scoring actions associated with it are always applied to the player. Using the chance mechanic you can specify the probability of Playlyfe applying a scoring action.

There are 2 types of chance mechanics currently:

  1. Activity Scoring Chance

    This is the probability of Playlyfe trying to apply the scoring actions of an activity. If the activity has no scoring actions this does not have any effect. You can do this if you have many scoring actions on an activity and wish to have Playlyfe always apply them together.

  2. Scoring Action Chance

    This is the probability of Playlyfe applying an individual scoring action to a player. You can do this if you want to set a different chance for applying each scoring action on the completion of an activity.

You can combine both Activity Scoring Chance and Scoring Action Chance together on a single activity.

Resolution

You can use scoring resolutions to delay the application of scoring actions on a player. Instead of applying the action on completion of a task you can specify a second task as the resolution task for the scoring action.

Playlyfe resolves the scoring action and applies it to the performer of the first task once a player completes the resolution task .

The resolution mechanic can be combined with lanes to create an approval flow

Recurrence

Recurrence is a mechanic which only works with looped tasks. Usually, Playlyfe applies the scoring action on a looped task only once the task has been completed. A looped task is considered to be complete only after it stops looping. Sometimes this is not the desired behavior. You may wish to apply the scoring action on every loop of the task. This can be done by marking the scoring action as a recurring action.

Game Bootstrapping

The final step in your game design is to define the initial conditions of your game. This is called Game Bootstrapping.

You can access Game Bootstrapping settings from Menu > Settings > Game Bootstrap

Over here you can do a number of things:

  1. Define global teams

    Global teams are teams which do not have any owner. They are created by the game itself when it is first deployed. Global Teams are useful to create teams which have super admin priveleges. Their members can only be set through the Playlyfe itself by the game designer.

  2. Define initial player state

    You can define the initial state of every player in the game. The main things in your control are:

    • Initial player scores
    • Initial processes that the player starts with
    • Initial roles of the player on a global team.

Simulating the Game

Now that your game is completely designed, its time for us to test it out. Playlyfe allows you to simulate your game and check for any flaws in your design.

Environments & Game Deployment

There are 2 environments into which you can deploy your game:

  • Staging The staging environment is a test environment. It resembles the production environment in all aspects except for the fact that it cannot have any actual player accounts.

  • Production The production environment is used to run a live online application. It can allow real Playlyfe users to join your game as players.

During deployment Playlyfe will take apart your game design and rebuild it from scratch. Playlyfe optimizes your game for speed and performance during this step. The final product is a customized game engine for your game.

You can simulate your game by clicking the Simulate button on the top bar.

If Playlyfe finds any issues in your game it will show you a dialog that looks something like this:

Fixing a broken Game Design

It may surprise you to know how easy it can be to break a game. It can happen from something as innocent as deleting a metric and forgetting to remove scoring actions that were using it. Playlyfe takes care of finding such problems and pointing them out to you so that you can take appropiate action to correct it.

Playlyfe looks for errors on all the components of your game before it tries to deploy the game. This allows you to have temporary inconsistencies in your game during the design phase.

Once Playlyfe detects an error it highlights the component with a red alert box in the listing on the left side of the screen.

You can then open up the component to get a better idea of what broke. Playlyfe will highlight different areas of the component and what issues exist.

Once you've make changes to the component the alert box turns gray indicating that the component has changed since finding the issue.

To test if your fix worked simply try to simulate the game again. If everything goes well you should see an all clear dialog. You will need to fix all the issues in your game before you get an all clear.

All Clear Image

Gamification for Dummies

Once the game has been deployed you can access it by going to Menu > Developer Tools > Simulator.

You can also go directly to the simulator at the url http://games.playlyfe.com/`your-game-id`/simulator

Dummies are mock players you can use to test out your game on. Besides not whining and complaining about what a boring job testing can be, dummies help you check if all your achievements, lane candidate checks, processes, etc behave as expected.

Creating a Dummy:

  • Click the + icon on the top left
  • Enter a unique ID for the dummy in the modal that pops up.

You can test out all the aspects of your game using the simulator including real-time notifications.

Some of the things you can do within the simulator include

  • Starting a Process

  • Inviting Players to a Process

  • Playing a Process

  • Leaving a Process

  • Creating a Team

  • Inviting a Player to the team

  • Leaving a team

  • Checking Leaderboards

Administer your Game with the Game Explorer

Once you've got the game running in the staging or production environment you will feel the urge to check up on things on a regular basis. It's only human. You may be wondering what the hell is going on in my game ?

This is exactly why we made the Game Explorer. To open the game explorer

  • Click the Menu button
  • Select Developer Tools and click Explorer.
  • Select the environment you want to explore and then click the listing you want inspect.

There are 4 lists available in each environment in the explorer:

  1. Players

    You can see a complete list of all the players in your game over here. If you click the view icon you can see more details about each player. You can also correct the player's scores here in case you found him cheating. Also if you've created private bootstrapped teams this is the only way you can put a player into that team.

  2. Teams

    You can view a complete list of Team instances created by players within your game. With each team you can see a complete listing of all

  3. Processes

    You can view a complete list of Process instances created by players within your game. In each process you can see the performers and what lanes they are part of.

  4. Game Activity

    Here you can see all the latest achievements and levels that players within your game have attained.

Time to Launch!

Once you have completed tweaking and perfecting your design you can launch your game so that other users on the Playlyfe Platform can start using it.

To add players to the game simply share the game url http://games.playlyfe.com/your-game-id with all your players. Once they have signed up and registered on Playlyfe they can simply approve your game and add it to their profile.

Players can create an Alias which will be used within the game.

Modifying your game

So you imagined that gamifying your business processes was going to solve all your problems forever, but things aren't going as planned? A few months down the line you realize that you're giving too much importance to how many appointments employees go to, instead of how many are actually yielding results. Or maybe you find out that you forgot to take into account certain tasks when creating your process. Maybe you want to add a whole new department and a bunch of brand new processes to your game?

Whatever the situation maybe, changing the design of a game is as simple as creating a new one!

All you need to do to change a game is to launch it again. Any updates to the components you made will be reflected immediately within the game. A more detailed explanation of what happens when you change a component follows.

Processes

All existing instances of a modified process will run to completion based on the original process it was created from. Any new instances of a process that is created will use the modified design to run.

Metrics

The only parts of metric which can be modified after launching a game are its name and its constraints. Changing the Type or ID of a metric is not allowed due to the adverse backlash it could have on existing players who have earned scores in those metrics. Also metrics cannot be deleted once the game has been launched.

Teams

If the team structure is modified all existing instances will stay the same. Any new instance of a team which is created will use the modified structure. Each team that wants to get upgraded will have to be disbanded and reformed.

Rules

If an achievement rule is modified any achievements earned from the old achievement rule will remain untouched. New achievements earned by players will be based on the modified rule. If a levelling rule is modified all players levels will updated to conform to the modified levelling rule the next time they gain a point.

Conclusion

We hope this guide helped you get a better understanding of the Playlyfe Platform and what it is capable of. New features are being added everyday, and we'll be updating this guide as time passes. We aim to use this as a comprehensive introduction to the Platform till we create more interactive and engaging teaching methods.

If you have any suggestions or questions about a feature not covered in this guide, feel free to write to [email protected] and we'll see to it right away!