The board gaming pioneers at StoneBlade Entertainment had an idea for a gamified journaling system that was born from their love of role playing games. It needed to infuse common journaling practices with tried and true reward & point systems that gamers loved. Thus, the Level Up Journal was born.
Requirements:
Pocket-sized and carriable.
Easy to read and understand even for non-gamers.
Visually appealing for high engagement.
Level Up Journal
Project Date: 2020 | Graphic Design & Book Layout
My Role
Stoneblade had an initial concept that was being internally tested among their employees with good success and consistent feedback.
As designer, it was my responsibility to clean-up the designs, create new layouts, and improve the product itself in order to create the final layouts for print.
The System
The foundations of the journal can be found in the foundations of game theory and game design. If you look at the basics even from the early years of game design, you’ll find some basic parameters:
Trigger: Enemy shows up.
Action: Deal with the Enemy.
Reward: Points or Leveling Up.
Repeat: Increase the complexity or challenge based on the reward.
From the creator, Justin Gary:
”At first, the Level Up Habit Journal was just a notecard with three daily tasks to accomplish and three habits I wanted to build. Friends would always ask about these odd little cards, and I would teach them my process. It was always impressive to see how much just a minute or two of work could change their day, week, month, life.
When my whole company started applying these techniques, we saw our creativity and productivity blossom. Being game designers, we automatically started refining the cards until they became a journal—still pocket-sized, but ten times more powerful. We tested it rigorously until we ended up with something both we and our testers loved. Since then, this little journal has been used to improve relationships, optimize daily workflow, create physical and mental health habits, finish big creative projects, and design more games!”
Features
The system can be contained in a tight design on a single page. The user divides their tasks, they earn points per task completed and earn “focus block” minutes (in the shield). Adding up daily points allowed the user to use them in a weekly breakdown page.
In Action
Tasks
The journal is task and reward-based in design so as you complete tasks during the day, you’ll reward yourself with XP and time to reflect on your successes.
Check-Ups
It’s important to regularly check-in with your successes and this page collects that data for you to review, recognize and reflect on how well you did.
Rewarding
As you gain XP, you gain rewards! The best thing about these rewards is these are the ones that you truly desire and are willing to put in the extra effort for.
Key Takeaways
Creating a compact tool for easily create tasks and manage them increased productivity in a fun and inventive way.
Rewarding the user beyond a simple checkmark increased engagement and completion of tasks.
Working directly with the inventor of the system allowed me to create solutions for the user outside of the bubble of the initial testing group that were the creator’s employees.