Behind the App: the History of the HabitRPG
What if you approached your life like a video game, seeing your tasks as monsters to fight and your daily goals as quests? This is the idea behind the HabitRPG , site and community, to be a role-playing game for your to-do list.
Web developer Tyler Renelle tracked his habits in a spreadsheet before deciding to ” gamify ” it by transferring it to a website and adding sprites as visual aids. Still intended for personal use and friends only, the idea sparked astonishing popularity as he added new features and the site went viral faster than Tyler expected. With co-founder Siena Leslie and Vicky Hsu as CEO of HabitRPG, there is now much more than just a spreadsheet. We spoke with the founders to find out more about the original idea and how it all happened.
First of all, how would you describe HabitRPG to someone who has never heard of it?
Sienna Leslie: HabitRPG is an online and mobile game designed to improve your daily habits and increase your productivity. Enter your habits, your daily goals and to-do list, then mark tasks to level up your avatar and unlock features like armor, pets, and even quests! We also have a social side so you can join the party with your friends and challenge each other to improve your life. Plus, we’re an open source community so anyone can join and contribute!
Where did the idea for the site come from? Have you tried to solve a problem you’re facing, or did the inspiration come from somewhere else?
Tyler Renelle: I have always been interested in improving my habits, especially with regard to my personal ADHD treatment. I read several books on this topic and was particularly struck by The Power of Habit . When I saw an article about tracking my habits with a color-coded table using cell formulas – red means bad habits, green means good – it piqued my interest. This is how proto-HabitRPG was born: like a tiny color-coded Google Docs spreadsheet.
What was the next step after you came up with it?
Tyler: As you might expect, the spreadsheet ended up getting too complex, so I programmed it into the website. It was still intended for personal use only, but I eventually put it online for my fellow friends to use. I added sprites from BrowserQuest as a joke among my friends, which turned into “really … that’s a good idea”, sparking the HP / XP / GP revolution. Thanks to their support, I gained confidence in the idea and started experimenting linking to Reddit and elsewhere. Then, oh Lifehacker, the fateful day came when you posted this and introduced me to Gamification. You can still see my comment (# 2 in this article) as “Wait! Wait, that’s exactly what this website does! ” This comment and your post changed everything – increased traffic and brought my stupid little site to its knees. Reddit followed suit, and someone suggested that I start a Kickstarter campaign to keep servers, add new features, build a mobile app – and the rest is history.
Siena: I discovered HabitRPG early on on Kickstarter and jumped in immediately because I motivated myself to pass my college final exams with a paper version of the same one. I immediately got into pixel art and soon began to take on an organizational role as well: running social media, managing our growing community, and sorting all our art work. Pretty soon Tyler asked me to join him as one of the co-founders of the site and I haven’t looked back since!
Vicky Hsu: When the other co-founders realized the site needed someone to manage the business side of HabitRPG, they called for help and I responded. The three of us quickly discovered that we have a good relationship and additional skills. Over the years, we have been joined by a number of great contributors from our open source community.
The aesthetics clearly go back to 8-bit and 16-bit games. What have you influenced the most?
Siena: The original pixel graphics came from the Mozilla BrowserQuest , the project open source and Creative Commons. However, there was only one avatar and a few pieces of armor and weapons at the time. No character customization, no pets, no monsters … Obviously those days are long gone! As the site started to grow and the art began to expand, we decided we would keep the current pixel art style for two reasons. First, we love the nostalgic factor of pixel art. Secondly, tons of our art is created by wonderful artists from our community. We felt that simple pixel art was much more accessible for users willing to participate!
Tyler: You can see a much more pronounced effect on the mechanics of the game. In the beginning, we were primarily influenced by Super Mario RPG, Chrono Trigger and World of Warcraft. Eventually, new entrants began to bring their favorite classics to the table. So far, we’ve brought in influences from everything from Dungeons and Dragons to Gaia Online.
Siena: In doing so, the site has really developed its own unique taste and sense of humor. Where else can you defeat the evil washerwoman, or team up to save NPCs from the vile monster ? We will often see messages like “Hurray! I beat Recidivate the Necromancer by washing all the dishes! ” It’s great.
How did you choose which platforms to target and which to ignore or wait?
Tyler: I had professional experience with websites, so I started with them to scratch my own itch. We used a hybrid mobile application stack called PhoneGap to easily compile a website for iOS and Android. This has its limitations (namely performance), so we knew that we would eventually need to migrate to our own apps, but the initial deployment allowed users to keep something functional while we got a better version. We are now starting to explore the possibility of using native applications in our applications.
What was your biggest obstacle and how did you overcome it?
Tyler: Our original tech stack was experimental and untested technology. Since I did not expect the product to become popular, I did not choose a production-ready stack. We lost a lot of users to a technology stack that couldn’t scale – a time that was taking longer than it should have. We were afraid of rewriting (the notorious ” Developer Mistake” # 1 ), but it had to happen, so we switched to Node.js and Angular. This migration not only increased the scale of our website, but also increased the scale of our team because with the rise of the more popular new technology stack, developers were more inclined to join.
What was the launch like for you?
Tyler: Initial launch? To be honest, it was a nightmare. As stated above, Habit was not ready for prime time – I was only guessing that maybe more than 15 people would be interested; the product was semi-baked on a half-baked frame. I was willing to work personally with everyone who saw and loved my Lifehacker comment. When 20 thousand people showed interest overnight (what are they feeding you, LH?), I was at a loss. I followed Reddit’s advice to start a Kickstarter campaign, if only to raise funds to help me ditch the old structure and move to a scalable PaaS .
Well, we did this and more. The product ecosystem is now a well-oiled machine. We have gamified the contribution system, the method by which members gain prestige in the community, and we are confident in the current flow.
How do you effectively deal with user inquiries and criticism?
Siena: We use Trello to organize the features the community asks for, encouraging them to comment or vote on cards. When we are ready to implement a new set of features, we sort them by the most popular and balance what will help us achieve our current site goals. That being said, since we are an open source community, users very often take matters into their own hands and code the functions they want! We love it. We’ve had users doing everything from fixing tiny CSS issues that were causing them errors to building a full HabitRPG for Windows Phone. They are incredible.
Now how do you divide the time between developing new features and managing existing ones?
Siena: We are very fortunate that our open source community is constantly introducing exciting new features. If you have requested a function that, in our opinion, is particularly desirable, we often prescribe for her monetary compensation via Bountysource ! When a task is very difficult or critical, someone from our team will take on it.
What advice would you give to others looking to take on a similar project?
Tyler: If you’re building a profitable open source business, read this first . Don’t start without understanding the licensing details. If you are not considering open source then consider this. The contributions of our community are invaluable, and without them HabitRPG would not have survived to this day.
Vicki: Read it. Lot. Obsessed. Also, learn to balance your intuition with the advice everyone is giving you – not all advice will apply, but some will, and filtering out the good things isn’t always easy.
Siena: Do not allow to account the importance of the community ! Don’t just talk to your AT users – talk to them, answer them and get to know them better. The more you know what they want, the better you can make your product and the more useful it will be to implement a feature that you know they will love.
What else would you like to say to readers, fans and users?
Tyler: For all the Lifehacker originals who remember the above article from 2012, you are the reason we took off. Stick to Lifehacker, it’s okay;)
Vicki: We love you! In a platonic, not creepy way. Mainly.
Siena: Contact us! Come and say hello at the tavern or the rookie guild . There are many friendly people in the HabitRPG community and we do our best to make them easy to join. Plus, since you’re reading this Lifehacker article, you’ll probably fit in.