Challenges
Challenges are made of one or more objectives, potentially leading to a reward. They differ from quests in that they do not include a narrative. Moreover, challenges can be limited in time, and be automatically recurring.
Combining time contraints and recurrence of challenges can cause learners to maintain a high engagement level with the platform, or a course, by enciting them to come back on a regular basis to complete their challenges and reap the rewards.
It is important to avoid any sense of failure in a gamification environment. Therefore, challenges are seen as bonus tasks, so learners are not penalised, judged, or blamed if they do not complete them on time.
How to implement them?
Challenges are useful to create unique challenges that do not require a storyline.
- To encourage learners to complete certain tasks within a given time.
- To maintain high engagement levels by offering periodic rewards.
- To create additional ways to earn rewards.
Not every challenge needs to offer a reward. For example, to unlock an achievement learners may be required to complete challenges, thus the reward for completing the challenges becomes the achievement.
Simple challenge
The simplest approach is usually to create a straightward repeating challenge, for example to come visit the course at least once a week. When recruits complete their challenge, they could get a small number of points and climb a leaderboard in Level Up XP for instance.
However, they take another dimention when they are dynamically assigned.
Dynamic challenges
One-off challenges assigned at designated times to encourage a particular behaviour is what we call dynamic challenges.
For example, after completing a quest and unlocking access to some additional learning material, you can assign a challenge to complete that material within 2 days. When they do, they get a reward. This creates an additional incentive for completing objectives quickly!
Timing behaviour
When a challenge has a time limit, a learner will only have the given time to complete their objectives and obtain the rewards. If the challenge has not been completed in the allocated time, it will eventually disappear and nothing else will happen to avoid spreading negativity.
Additionally, challenges with a time limit can be set to repeat automatically. Challenges will repeat based on the same duration as their time limit. For instance, a challenge limited to a week will repeat every week. When a challenge repeats, it essentially resets and can be completed again for the same reward.
Repeating challenges will only repeat at the end of their original time limit, even if they were completed early. For example, if a learner completes a weekly challenge early, they won't have the ability to retake the challenge until the next Monday.
Challenge outcomes
Similarly to quests, challenges can trigger rewards and side effects when they are completed. But unlike quests, the rewards and side effects are automatically awarded and triggered as soon as the challenge is completed.