Books: some can’t put them down, others leave them neglected on a shelf. Sadly, I fall in the latter category. While I do enjoy getting lost in a great read, I seldom make time for books, as I just can’t quite get myself to do it in such a distracting world—especially with video games aplenty. We could all use a little motivation, something to persuade us to choose paper over plastic. Fortunately, such a lure is about to exist: The Game of Books.
BookLamp’s “Book Genome Project” powers the game.
The Game of Books, at its core, is an attempt to apply the concept of gamification—taking game mechanics and applying it to a real-life context—to reading books. Thus, readers are given extra incentives to read via a rewards system, while simultaneously being encouraged to branch out to new genres of literature.
The project is lead by Aaron Stanton, founder of BookLamp and the Book Genome Project—the behind-the-scenes backbone of The Game of Books. Similar to how Pandora Radio handles music, the Book Genome Project is a massive analysis project that scans countless books for elements such as thematic and writing style make-up. The Game of Books itself will be a web-based game, with iOS and Android apps.
How The Game works
Colorful badges cover a variety of themes.
After reading one of the books supported by the Game—of which there are over 100,000 and growing—you claim the book and receive rewards, including badges, a unique digital game card, and experience points (ReaderXP) that applies to your Character Level. Each book in the system has been analyzed for its contents to determine what badges and XP will be awarded.
What’s interesting is how these themes are applied to the Game. While readers have an overall pool of XP, each theme also has its own independently tracked XP score. The XP a book yields is split among the themes it has. For example, Storm Front by Jim Butcher covers twelve different themes such as Murder, Lust, and Magic.
Over time, a reader’s taste in books will become apparent thanks to how the themes are each tracked. But another benefit to the themed XP system is bringing to light what a reader lacks in their repertoire. Thus the game can encourage readers to branch out of their comfort zones and delve into other genres—one of the primary goals of the Game—in order to snag a different set of badges and XP types.
Recent events and current status
The demo lets you build a sample Player Card.
I recently had the privilege to speak with Aaron Stanton about the progress his team has made. Back in December 2012, the project was officially funded on Kickstarter to the tune of over $100,000, which includes a $30,000 contribution from book publishing company Lulu.com.
Currently The Game of Books project is in an early state and on track. The technology at the heart of The Game of Books is done, thanks to the Book Genome Project. The badges have all been created by the design team. A functional concept demo is live, and shows the various themed XP awarded after searching for various books.
Looking to the future
Aaron Stanton
Aaron was energetic and enthusiastic all throughout our conversation, but what became the most engaging topic of discussion was his plans for the future of the project. Because the Game is still young in development, it leaves quite a lot of the final product still malleable, which is certainly not a bad thing.
One of the challenges the BookLamp team has to overcome is how to deal with cheaters. The current solution is the development of what they like to call the “Cheater Eater” system. The idea is to give a basic comprehension quiz to readers before awarding points. While Aaron recognizes that nothing will stop someone determined to cheat, the Cheater Eater system could flag those that show suspicious behavior. Also, similar to the Captcha systems in online forms, Cheater Eater will help deter people from endlessly spamming every book.
Another idea that Aaron is wanting to explore ways to involve authors with the project. The current idea will invite any author to have their book included in The Game. The Book Genome Project is very fair to small indie books, giving as much XP consideration to indie books as New York Times Best Sellers. To further sweeten the pot, participating authors can be granted unique game cards featuring their book to give away at book signings. This form of cross-promotion has very powerful repercussions and is a win-win-win for BookLamp, authors, and players.
A third idea that Aaron wants to eventually get to is incorporating a form of user profile customization. One option is to have an avatar system, where players can equip costume pieces and items. These can be purchased by trading in XP and/or badges, and may even give special bonuses. For example, a medieval sword prop could be bought with Medieval XP, and allow faster XP growth from Medieval-themed books. The ultimate result is profile pages that truly reflect a readers’ tastes.
Finally, one of the major features that will eventually be deployed is bringing The Game of Books officially into schools and libraries to encourage children to read. Along with the digital online versions, real-life cards and badge stickers will be supplied in kits, and can be awarded to deserving kids. In turn, the badge stickers can be collected and added to a passport-like record book, which in turn will encourage them to read a variety of books to collect as many different badges as possible.
Of course, the “wish list” of features doesn’t end there. In fact, those interested in becoming involved can join the team every Tuesday at 6pm Eastern, during their “Dev Hour” on their Facebook page. During these events, visitors can test out new game features, field questions, and share ideas. In this way, the project remains fairly transparent and benefits directly from user input.
Wrapping it all up
After having my talk with Aaron and looking more into the Game and what the team has planned, I definitely see the grand potential to this project. This is precisely something that I wish I had around when I was a kid in school. Instead, we had the dreaded Accelerated Reader program.
While Accelerated Reader had similar features to the Game, such as awarding points for books read and some schools had a prize system, its quizzes were frustrating and the whole system was neither fun nor motivating to me. The Game of Books certainly addresses these complaints, and I expect the physical awards to be especially appealing to kids.
Finally, the fact that the game is for all ages is extremely appealing to me personally. Though I didn’t expect gamification to be my answer, I have been seeking for a way to motivate myself to read more, as well as explore new genres. Once the project goes live, I will definitely be subscribing.
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