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Quirler: Questing In Real Life
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Registered User admin
Registered User admin
in Indie Games
"This is fascinating, this is the future of social interaction. This is the next logical progression in my mind."--Bobby DeMuro at The Media Bytes
The goal is to live your life, Quirler will just make your life more interesting. We want to develop a video game like no other. We want to make your life a game. Quirler is a player-sustained, quest based, live gaming environment with a reward system. Quirler's players will be rewarded for living their lives and will be challenged to take on new experiences. From participating in Quirler sponsored events, to rewarding players for going to a Zombie Walk. Quirler will give you bragging rights for doing everything that you have always wanted and you can win random loot for having more fun. Everyone has hobbies and things they have always wanted to try, and we want to reward you for these activities.
Listen to Aaron talk about Quirler on the Media Bytes podcast. And check out the podcast here.
Players will log onto the Quirler gaming platform and create their own character. From your character profile, you can message other players, chat, and follow their progress. Once a player's character profile is complete, the real fun begins. Quirler is a quest hub for your everyday life, and you will be rewarded for completing our quests. Quirler's quest list splits into a number of different categories. These categories include things such as scavenger hunts, cooking quests, and many, many more.
http://youtu.be/Y9aEeO9GFPI
With Quirler, people can do the things they love, try new activities, and make new friends along the way. A quest can be as simple as going to school or work, attending a Quirler event, or mastering the dance from the Thriller video. There will be single quests and complicated quest chains for players to complete. Once you have accepted a quest, you take a picture, or video, of yourself completing the quest. Players include their player name within the picture or video. Completed quests will be submitted for moderation while other Quirler players will moderate your quest submission.
Moderating quests will allow players to gain experience points and witness the antics of other Quirlers. With our level system, and other rewards, you will be able to watch your character grow as you complete Quirler quests. If a quest submission is deemed successful by its moderators, players will be rewarded. Players will always receive two things when a quest is completed: 1) Experience points will be added to your character profile and 2) Players will receive loot—a random chance to receive an experience multiplier, a title for your profile, a button, a sticker, a t-shirt, or other stuff. Upon completion of a related series of quests (a quest chain) a user will receive a badge, or title to post to their profile that can be viewed by other Quirlers.
We are three friends that have been passionate about video games ever since we were old enough to understand what the power button did on our Nintendo. This passion has caused us to make video games an important aspect of our lives. Although only two of us can claim that we are actually brothers, through our many years of friendship, this distinction no longer matters. Throughout the years, we have worked a plethora of jobs together, most of them including the pizza business. As life progressed, we have moved on to new opportunities and coming together to work on this project is a natural extension of our long standing friendship. The ability to work together again is an exciting prospect for the three of us.
Thanks for taking the time to read this guys! We are hoping to have some very fun PAX East specific quests up on the website, so hopefully we can all quest together in March.
You can find the website at:
www.quirler.com
And here is a 1,000 use beta code just for the Penny Arcade forums!
Beta Code: SZ5RGEXCJM
Caleb Hill
Co-creator
www.quirler.com
0
Posts
Fuck I don't even know what to think. Have you all thought about what this means at any deep level, or have you mostly just been focused on getting it up and running? Presumably you're monetizing it by having sponsored quests and stuff, right? I tried to sign up with your beta code but the site spit this at me when I clicked the signup button:
Error: 'bool' object has no attribute '__getitem__' TB: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/home/thegame/wsgi/thegame/www/index.wsgi", line 109, in application (r'^/json/messages/loadforuser/(\d+)/(\d+)/(\d+)/{0,1}$', ['GET','POST'], page.json_messages_for_user, "application/json"), File "/home/thegame/wsgi/thegame/page.py", line 134, in handle_request return super(Page, self).handle_request(path_defs) File "/home/thegame/wsgi/lib/handler.py", line 105, in handle_request return func(*l) File "/home/thegame/wsgi/thegame/page.py", line 1461, in html_signup if ref_user['id'] == new_user['id']: TypeError: 'bool' object has no attribute '__getitem__'But... yeah. Wow.
Sorry about the beta code not working, no idea what the error is all about but I will post a new one at the end of this message. We are very much focused on getting it up and running right now. Mainly delving into making your "character" customization fun, and making the game really enjoyable to play. This can be a very fine edged sword, and the reason that we need some injections of beta players. Right now we are working on level up perks, public posts (ala pinterest). Down the road we want to add unlockable character skins etc etc. But that does not mean we haven't thought about stuff at a deeper level that is for sure. We are planning on having sponsored quests, once we feel comfortable with the player experience. There are so many plans for this project if we can get it on its feet, so please tell your friends, play, and let us know how we can make it better! In my heart of hearts I am hoping to get a good group of Pax Easters together so I can create some very Pax centered quests.
Thanks for the excitement, it is not always easy trying something out of the box, and seeing someone excited truly lightens our hearts!
Caleb Hill
50 use beta code: 2YMWJBEGST
Whatever. I could probably do the "Social" quest of "Meet a New Person" although I have to get a picture of me plus my new friend with "TychoCelchuuu" in there which is going to be... awkward... although not quite as awkward as making a video recreating a section of Gangnam Style in public with a spoken or written version of "TychoCelchuuu" in there somewhere.
I want to give this thing the benefit of the doubt but at this point it literally looks like a way to exploit people with addictive/Skinner box prone personalities who will do stuff just for a meaningless reward, but I can't even say that because I can't see what's in it for Quirler. Until the sponsored quests get in there, I suppose.
I just... this thing is so weird. WHAT IS IT? If it's a game, it's a game with a broad and pointless set of goals that I can't imagine I would have any joy in fulfilling. The stuff I wouldn't have done sans-Quirler isn't something I really want to do for the sake of my Quirler XP, and the stuff I'd do without my Quirler quests would feel oddly perfunctory and obligatory if I were to receive a reward for doing it. It would be like getting a little "+5 relationship bonus" for hugging a loved one. It would cheapen the experience. What I want from life is to have experiences, not to get XP.
Well speak for yourself man, I would totally hug people more if I got achievements for doing it. :P I am addicted to the cheevos. I admit this. Okay, granted, I don't like to get achievements for the sake of silly little Experience Points, I like getting them to show (to myself mostly) that I've accomplished something cool. I will note that I don't pay attention to the points, ever, because it's what I did that matters to me, not how many points I got for it. I'd definitely rather see a list of things that I've done than just look at my level, although XP isn't a bad idea in itself.
I haven't signed up for the site yet or anything, so I can't really see what kind of variety there is to the quests, but what I'd want to see most is stuff like those cooking quests (that's one type I've gathered you have). Like, you naturally need to add options for people who are vegetarian/vegan/etc. (as @TychoCelchuuu said), but having a cooking quest with a sponsored recipe (maybe using specific brands of food and stuff-- like the recipes companies have on their packaging?) seems like a great idea to me. I think I really would try out cooking stuff if I had that kind of info right in front of me like that. Basically, I would encourage anything where the player is actually motivated to learn something useful, do something new, or do something important through the site. Stuff like the Zombie Survival Kit and stopping the gas meter at 13.37 is cute, but it's really applying the points to actually practical stuff that people might not normally put in the effort to do that seems like the most interesting aspect of this to me. Stuff like trying out restaurants, or cleaning the house, or painting, or weeding, or donating stuff to a thrift store, or... Basically, the stuff you get on the site should be an incentive to actually get stuff done. Kind of a cookie jar full of ideas for things to do, if you will.
When it comes to interpersonal stuff like making friends, etc., you might want to think about some ways to make that less awkward, though. I agree with @TychoCelchuuu that having to take a photo with your username in it for a website would be WAY too embarrassing. You may wish to brainstorm ways to make that less awkward. A good first step would be simply taking a photo together with the person you met (and presumably being able to compare that photo to another of you on your profile), since that's more normal, but still kind of awkward if you literally just met somebody. It's much less awkward to do this stuff in events people go to or classes they take or whatever because you can usually take a photo without directly involving another person. But in general, you should ponder ways to make sure people aren't embarrassed working toward their levels on the site if they're in public.
I dunno, I do think this site has potential! You just gotta flesh it out more. In particular, on your front page or your About section, you should really have some sort of preview of the types of quests people will see on the site. As it is, you don't even have the video you linked in this thread on the website, so there's nowhere near enough info on the site for people who don't already know how it's supposed to work, right now. Fix this in the future! Okay, this post has gone on way too long, so I'll leave it there. I may try signing up sometime in the near future to help give you some good feedback.
Honestly, I have to apologize. It never crossed my mind to think about other dietary needs in these situations. I will have to come up with a decent work around. But I must add, hot dog restaurants do exist, and they are amazing (usually have vegan options as well). I stand admonished though, and will work my best to add in some variability for different groups. Sometimes it can be hard to please a majority of people in these situations.
Verification
Honestly, we do not like the idea of adding stress when people are playing Quirler. But much like an escort mission, some things just have to be done. We want to prevent cheating as often as possible, and this is the way we have decided to try to curtail it. In the near future, we will have an Iphone/Android app that will automatically verify your pictures and upload them to the website. This will cut down the hassle for players since they will no longer need verification in the picture, and will not have to take the extra time to upload them to the website.
Quests
Thank you so much Essee, it is nice to hear what type of quests people will enjoy. For myself, one of the main reasons I wanted to create this website is to encourage people to try new things. I believe that variety is truly the spice of life, and an opportunity missed is a sad thing. Thus, I want Quirler to motivate people to get out in the world and try new things. Over time (this is an early beta form, site is about 1/2 finished at best) I hope to add quests for a myriad of hobbies, crafts, EVERYTHING. On top of this, all of us at Quirler find it very important to sponsor things such as donation, voting, etc. This quests will be prominent and give very good XP.
As time goes on, and we have a steady player base is when the real fun will happen. For cooking quests, we want to set up classes with chefs for people to participate in through Quirler. I went Quirler sponsored "raid halls" where people know they can meet other players to do quests. We want to add actual quests into the world, kill quests, escort quests etc.
Honestly the ideas for quests can be endless, and we have only managed to get a small sample up on the website for now. From video game achievement quests to quests for losing weight, or getting a raise. Sometimes people just need the little extra motivation, I hope we can give them that. I really like the quests for specific recipes, we have been working on some quests to create certain types of food, but certain recipes will be even better!
Other stuff
On top of all of the actual "gaming" in the website, this will also be a means of social networking. Taking the idea of a picture is worth a thousand words to heart. I personally prefer pictures, and that is about all I look at when I go on social networking sites. Quirler is built upon this idea of seeing all of the interesting things that your friends are doing (instagramish, but more interesting).
The XP
The idea of leveling and XP will be developed a bit more. I agree that right now it seems fairly pointless. But we are currently developing some new things to make leveling more important. First off we will be adding "perks" these perks can be anything from extra xp per quest completed, to eventually sponsored perks. For example, complete the Pax quest, and get a 10% discount at Pax East etc etc. Also, we are looking into profile customization unlocks as your character level progresses.
Thank you guys so much for your responses, I appreciate any feed back I can get. I really believe that this project can be something special, and any feedback goes a long way into making it something that people can truly enjoy.
Once we get some notoriety, and more players, we certainly want to work with organizations to coordinate events within cities. We are hoping to include localized quests wherever and whenever we can get people and organizations involved. On top of working with organizations and such, we are hoping to pick up business that would be willing to involve their particular association as a questing area. Lastly, if we are able to grow large enough, we are hoping to add particular quests that involve locations specifically. For example, I am building a large database of quests built around my local college campus, so that players can do complete location based riddle quests (ala geocaching, but more involved).
As of right now we have a mobile app in the works. It will do a few important things. Right now we are focusing on using it as an automatic quest authorization device. But if we are able to bring in some funding we are hoping to use it as a quest notification device as well. Some ideas being thrown around include breaking areas into "zones", when you enter a new zone, the app will notify you of any nearby quests. Essentially turning it into a hand held quest board.
Thanks for the input guys, It is greatly appreciated.
Over time you'd assemble a set of badges that says a fair bit about you, and you could go for certain other ones, like I would go for one that would encourage me to try different things with coding or drawing or guitar playing as I do struggle to motivate myself to practise.
It's a great idea, hopefully you can get more people to help you make quests as the more quests the better in things like this. (As long as the experience rewards are consistent)