Productivity and self-realisation seem to be increasingly important for us all. In fact part of the motivation for us establishing our stance on Meaningful Play was through our observation of increasing self-analysis in mainstream media (reality television) and literature (self-help books). We’re constantly looking for ways to make ourselves better, and its seems more than ever that there simply isn’t enough time in the day to get everything done.

I’m a massive fan of Tina Su’s excellent blog on “creativity, clarity, and happiness”. Through the blog she presents a clear and concise set of tactics for dealing with the issues which shackle us from becoming true masters of our own destiny.

Think Simple Now – Tina Su

Recently I’ve been thinking about how these sorts of lessons might be communicated in game form. While both Wii Fit and Sony’s Eye Toy Kinetic focus on the physical and meditative elements of a harmonious existence, there has yet to be a mainstream success that tackles some of the more psychological elements.

This line of thinking brought me back to the format of the Chinese Proverb. Such neat and tidy little nuggets of insight they are to reflect on. What if we could create actual gameplay metaphors to package insights such as Tina’s into a format as succinct as a proverb? The only missing element would be a system to tie these micro-experiences together, delivering them contextually to the user in response to their current state of mind, and tracking their progression down the path to enlightenment.

An obvious complication would be the sensitivity of the personal information that the user would put into the game (tracking feelings such as happiness, self worth, productiveness, etc), and the reliance on players to be honest with their inputs for the game to meaningfully respond to their state of mind. As such the game would be an incredibly personal experience, providing quite the challenge when it comes to testing. However, I feel that if inputs from the game could be shared anonymously, then there may well be people out there happy to share their stories from the path to self-realisation in a similar way to Tina.