SuperBetter is an online life gamification service that helps to gamify your usual not-so-exciting day in order to make you happier and healthier. Signing up to this service opens you up to an engaging service that can help you overcome an ill state of mental and physical being, such as depression, anxiety, laziness, obesity, etc.
When you start using this service, you will be given ‘Quests‘, which are a set of tasks that you have to complete. Each quest is related to your mental, social, physical and emotional resilience. Completing these tasks adds points to these traits on your account, which levels you up. Some example tasks that this service asks you to perform are: hug yourself, shake a hand, drink a tall glass of water, and so on. So, pretty simple tasks (and some not so simple tasks) that can help cheer you up and make your day exciting.
Initially, you have the option to add a ‘power up pack‘ or ‘design your own adventure‘. A ‘power up pack’ is a bundle of quests aimed at overcoming an ill state of being and ‘design your own adventure’ lets you add your own customized quests. You can even invite friends as allies. There are also ‘bad guys’ that are basically very difficult tasks that you have to do.
I honestly had a jolly experience using this app and I can surely say it does make a difference. So let’s check out this awesome life gamification service!
Why is Superbetter Special?
This life gamification service is a one of its kind app that focuses on your physical and mental life through engaging game-like tasks. True there are other apps and services like Superbetter (like this one) but they don’t give you a fun and exciting experience by putting the tasks as a game. Other than that, you can also check your progress.
Adding Quest and Doing Quests:
When you open the Superbetter, you’ll be greeted by all the activities and the feeds that you have done in the past.
To check out Quests, click the ‘Quests‘ panel on the interface. The main focus of this life gamification service is on completing quests related to your mental, emotional, physical and social well-being. There is no time limit for the quests and most of them are easy (and useful) to do. The only point is that you have to be honest to yourself and complete the task given to feel the difference.
In the screenshot below, I got the quest to ‘leave awesome clues’ on stick-it notes around my house that say ‘I am awesome’ (and other self-appreciating things).
This can help mentally by boosting the self-confidence of the person doing the task. Upon completing the task, I clicked ‘I Did This!‘ and was awarded 2 points of mental resilience and 1 point of emotional resilience.
To add more quests, you can click on ‘Power Packs‘ that are specialized packs with quests, ‘Power Ups‘, ‘Bad Guys‘ (which we will talk about later) focusing on a specific productive part of life (for example, the ‘Lazy exercise’ to get out of laziness).
Adding Power-Ups and Bad Guys:
Power-Ups:
‘Power Ups‘ are basically quick, easy, and productive tasks that you can do. These are provided mostly to give you quick relief from stress or make you feel better generally. Power-Ups can be accessed by clicking its button on the top left-hand side of the page.
Bad Guys:
‘Bad Guys‘ are really challenging tasks that you can do. These special types of quests are done mostly over a long period of time and involves vanquishing big and embedded problems like self-criticism and low self-confidence. The payoffs of ‘battling’ these bad guys are big. When you click ‘I Battled This‘ you’ll be provided a form where you will be asked if you found the bad guy to be tough or if you vanquished the ‘bad guy’. You can keep on doing these tasks till you completely defeat the ‘bad guy’.
Adding Future Boosts:
By adding ‘Future Boosts,’ you can add tasks that you have planned to do over a long period of time. It can be anything that after doing makes you feel satisfied and have looked forward to for a long time. You can complete a future boost by clicking ‘This Happened‘, which awards you +1 mental resilience.
Achievements, Secret Identities, and Challenges:
Clicking on ‘Achievements’ lets you view the special achievements you have won till now by playing this game. So if you defeat a Bad Guy, it will be presented as an achievement on the page.
Secret Identity:
You can also make a ‘Secret Identity‘ for yourself which can make you feel like a superhero and boost your confidence.
Challenge and Epic Win:
Challenge:
‘Challenge’ is a really long term and important goal that you can set for yourself. It states ‘I am getting superbetter from-‘ following which is a dropdown option. It is where you can select the issue/challenge you are going through like depression, concussion, anxiety, physical injury, etc.
The Epic Win:
The ‘Epic Win‘ section is the answer to the tough challenge that you are trying to complete. It answers the challenge section ‘So I can-‘. It is to motivate you so you can complete the goals that really matter.
Together it phrases the sentence ‘I am getting superbetter from__so I can__”
Keeping Track with Secret Lab:
The ‘Secret Lab’ is where you can track your progress through Insights, Trackers, and Notes.
‘Insights’ consist of graphs that show every part of your resilience over a given period of time. You can check different trackers and also toggle between different types of graphs that present the emotional, social, physical and mental resilience in different colors. ‘Trackers‘ consist of questions that help you map how much progress you have made while using Superbetter. You can even write and keep useful notes in your secret labs through the ‘Notes‘ section.
It also provides you with the ‘Science‘ and ‘Video‘ sections. In the science section, the science behind every feature of Superbetter is explained. For example, it is explained that people are happier and productive when they have life goals. The video section shows you Jane McGonigal (famous game designer and the creator of Superbetter) explain the features of Superbetter and other related information.
Other Features:
The other features of Superbetter include:
- It provides you with a concise ‘To Do‘ list on the front page where you can review all the left out quests you have to finish
- It acts as a social platform with your friends as allies on board. You can post what you are doing at that moment and let your allies know, just like popular networking sites.
- You can review the points you are currently on by clicking the resilience widget on the top-right corner of the interface. This takes you to the ‘resilience‘ section. Here you can check out the total points you have and the peak points you have achieved.
- Whenever you level up, you unlock a new move and a secret file. The move is a shortcut task you can use to become more resilient and the secret file explains the science behind that shortcut task. Leveling up also uncovers a special motivational picture on the levels section under resilience section.
Final Words
Superbetter is a wonderful website. It has made it clear that doing tasks in a gamified manner adds more excitement and takes your mind off the effort you are applying. So if you’re trying to lose weight, you’ll be motivated enough by Superbetter to treat it as a game and it won’t be hard anymore. The only problem I found was that of the ‘Science Cards’ that the website mentioned about, which I could not find on the website. I definitely recommend people to spice up their lives with this life gamifying service, especially depressed ones.
Do leave a feedback about Superbetter in the comments!
