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Why ‘Gamifying’ Rarely Works

In this modern age, a great deal of hooplah is made over the idea of ‘gamifying’ work, exercise, or tasks we need to do. Yet it rarely works as well as the experts would argue, and only certain people seem to be able to make it work at all, let alone long term. I don’t think it’s because we are failing or bad at it. No, instead, I have a theory that strikes at the heart of the concept, and yet may suggest a solution.

(Neat way to keep you reading, eh?)

The secret to gamifying – and games in general – is the reward for completing the game or task, or even ‘winning’. In many games, ‘winning’ itself is defined by the reward we receive – money, a medal, a trophy, bragging rights, etc.. Without the reward, finishing soon begins to seem rather hollow. So we’re taught that, in order to ‘gamify’ something in our life, we need to come up with some sort of ‘action-reward’ system. If we exercise today, we get to have that tasty energy drink. If we finish the contract before it’s due, we get to go out for drinks with our bestie, or whatever. We have to reward ourselves.

Unfortunately, it’s right there that I think the system breaks down for most people. Rewarding ourselves rapidly seems to lose its appeal and ceases to be fun for most people. And I think I know why.

Anticipation and surprise.

You see, whenever we play a game – any game – we anticipate the prospect of winning. Winning brings rewards, so the anticipation gives us that little dopamine hit, and winning then feels even better. So anticipation is key. But there’s another element, and I think it’s even more vital. Surprise.

If we know the outcome of the game is assured, it’s not as much fun. But if we also know the prize for winning is guaranteed, it’s also not quite as much fun – often even less so. There’s no surprise. So when we gamify something, we go into it knowing that the outcome – the winning – is reasonably assured, and the outcome for winning is absolutely guaranteed

So why are other games so much more fun?

.Because, there’s the element of surprise.

No matter how formal the game, first of all there’s the chance we may lose altogether. Winning doesn’t just rely on how well WE play, it also depends on how well THE OTHER SIDE plays. Winning isn’t assured. On top of that, no matter how much we trust the game, in the back of our minds is always that question – however tiny – of ‘will I actually get the promised reward?’ Maybe the other side will renege and not offer the promised winnings. Maybe the organizers will fail to follow through. Maybe any number of a million things might happen that will make the victory pointless. And when none of that happens, we’re delighted, and the win seems sweet, because we weren’t absolutely assured of getting it.

This is why ‘gamifying’ doesn’t – usually – work as well as it should.

Though, this also suggests a possible solution. A way of ‘upping your game’, if you don’t mind the unintentional pun.

Follow the guidelines for gamifying, yes – but get someone else involved. Either find someone doing the same or similar things and test yourselves against each other (‘I wrote ten thousand words this week, how about you? Oh, you wrote eleven thousand? Okay, then I’m buying the beers at the pub this week.’). Or let your partner measure your progress and think up the rewards (Okay, honey, since you did all your exercises and did ten more pushups this week than last, I’m taking you to your favorite store on Saturday for a little shopping).

In other words, insert a little surprise in your gamifying to go along with the anticipation.

Comment if you like and let me know if this rings true and if my solution works for you.

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‘Sands of Change’ – Chapter I

I

The elephant litter swayed like the belt of a drunken lowtown dancing girl, pitching and rolling with every lumbering step of the great beast below it. The girl on the low divan at the expansive litter’s shaded center closed her eyes and tried to imagine the motion was caused by the pitching deck of a ship on the high seas – bound for adventure and far-off, exotic locales. She slipped her idling fingers from her throat to the sweat trickle in the valley of her breasts, then lifted them lazily to her tongue – tasting salt and honey and the slightly bitter tang of the herbs used to scent the oil that coated her skin, making it gleam and keeping off the flies and biting insects that were as ubiquitous as breathing in this overheated place. She lolled her head in the stifling heat, eyes still closed, and felt the cool tickle across her mostly bare skin of the clicking beads of silver, turquoise, amber, and garnet that adorned the many thin braids that held her long, thick hair under control and permitted the errant and infrequent breezes to cool her scalp and neck. One such breeze chose that moment to caress her, shivering her skin into goosebumps for a moment while smelling of spicy incense and heavy animal musk.

Shian avn Tora-al-Khash opened her honey-gold eyes and reached her arm to the silk curtain gently billowing in that breeze, bracelets of silver and ivory singing musically at her wrist as she twitched the soft red fabric aside and gazed out on the passing landscape for what felt like the hundredth time today. It was a sea – not of inviting green or blue water, but rather of forbidding gray-tan sand – rolling away from her sight in rippling dunes punctuated by the occasional cracked-dry mud flat or achingly white salt pan. Sand-pitted boulders dotted the expanse – thrusting up out of the sand at odd angles – interspersed with the corpses of sun-bleached and long-dead trees jutting up from the heat-blasted landscape, barren limbs stretched skyward like beseeching arms begging for mercy from the relentless sun. Below her rolled the dry, wrinkled, and ashen gray skin of the great elephant she and her entourage rode upon, caked in dried mud and dust from the last watering hole – the beast’s own version of defense against the biting things that flew on buzzing wings. Ahead and behind walked more elephants with their own litters, though these carried goods and supplies – not people, and between and among them paced lope-legged camels with their bobbing goose-like necks, and more – elaborately saddled and outfitted horses bearing men and woman wrapped in dark azure and scarlet silks with wickedly curved weapons at their waists. Around and about them all loped the two-legged, spike-collared attack lizards like scaly hunting dogs, their-three-clawed feet that could disembowel a horse leaving great birdlike tracks in the sand as they scuttled to and fro amid the beasts of burden – equally taloned and vicious arms held bent to their chests, occasionally reined in from straying too far afield by the whistles of the mounted riders.

No one else rode as Shian did, not even the caravan master who led this procession along the edge of the Al’droghar Desert – called the ‘Great Furnace’ by those that lived in or near it. No one else was as important here as she – or was it ‘as valuable?’ she thought with a brief, bitter twist to her lips. Though her father had insisted he was sending her as his agent in the negotiations with a new esteemed merchant and potential ally in some far-off city – the City of Al-Rhankur if she recalled correctly – she suspected she was being sent to meet some fat, boring, prospective suitor. Oh, no doubt there would be negotiations – there were far too many oils and carpets and rolls of the finest linens, parchment, and vellum, along with kegs of spices and boxes of Mother-of-pearl and shells used for dyes, all guarded by steely-eyed riders of a number that betrayed – even openly declared – the value of the cargo borne upon the backs of these sundry great beasts. Her father had invested a great deal in this caravan, though Shian was more than a bit suspicious as to what he was trying to sell. The thought that this all might be an elaborate ruse to get his only daughter wed to form a stronger alliance of wealth and trading power… that thought made her grind her teeth a little each time it occurred to her. Someone was going to be very surprised if that was, indeed, the case.

Surprised, and disappointed.

She turned her head at a sudden ‘chk-chk-chk’ noise from the corner of the litter, seeing her handmaiden Toula wielding a long, simple stiletto, chipping chunks and morsels of ice from the sweating block in the round cedar-wood box on her ample lap, depositing the chips in a wide, shallow brass goblet before adding the intended golden wine Shian preferred. Her other three handmaidens dozed fitfully on the mound of pillows behind her divan, allowed to nap by turns during the high heat of the desert’s afternoon. Shian watched, amused, as the serving girl slyly slipped a few chips of the cool refreshment between her dark caramel lips when she thought no one was looking. Shian couldn’t care less – ice was a minor luxury this close to the desert, something any commoner with a brain, some water, pots and straw could make. She didn’t resent the girl the surreptitious pleasure, but played the game of being unaware – allowing her handmaiden the small thrill of getting away with it. Shian knew her servants thought she was spoiled, foolish, and stupid, and she didn’t disabuse them of the notion, since it served her well to be consistently underestimated. She also had a reputation for casual cruelty, ill-deserved perhaps, but nonetheless cultivated like the rest. It also served her interests for her people to think her harsh and mean – or so her mother had told her many times in her youth. It was for this reason she always kept the coiled ostrich-hide whip at her belt, and fingered it often – as she absently found herself doing now – though, rumors aside, she’d never actually brought herself to use the thing.

Shian let her eyes linger over Toula from behind half-lowered lashes, admiring the girl’s full figure barely concealed in the loose, sheer blue cotton drapery that served as her dress in this heat. Her tongue slowly wetted her lips in a delicate play as her gaze lingered on the handmaiden’s full breasts, their darker centers pressing against the sheer garment as though questing for release. She breathed deeply and caught the tangy scent of the handmaiden on the breeze, a delicious mixture of lavender, honeysuckle, warm skin, and heat-sweat that made Shian shiver slightly. Her gaze slipped lower and she watched the girl’s soft and perfectly hour-glassed belly undulate softly with the effort of stabbing fragments from the ice. Her eyes drifted back up, following the natural lines of Toula’s dark burnt-honey skin to her face, bent in concentration, full lips pursed and dark-lashed eyes lowered. Shian let herself imagine her hands twined in the serving girl’s rich, dark curls as she guided those luscious lips into contact with her own intimate set – imagining feeling the girl’s strong hands and black-lacquered nails on her own thighs as she bucked her hips and pressed herself tighter to the handmaiden’s mouth…
She must have sighed, or even groaned softly, since Toula’s eyes flicked up and the girl realized her mistress was staring at her. From the way her cheeks flushed and she looked down sharply, Shian suspected that something of her reveries must have been evident on her face. Gods curse it, now she was flushing with a heat that didn’t come from the air, her own errant thoughts leaving her inner thighs beginning to slick from the heat at her groin. She shifted her legs and tensed her muscles in a practiced way, providing small immediate relief but also making the liquid feeling of need in her belly even worse. She needed a distraction, or entertainment. She opened her eyes again as Toula poured the wine and shifted onto her knees to negotiate the elephant’s rolling gait and deliver the dripping brass goblet to her mistress. Shian accepted it with a wordless murmur and nod, holding it in front of her lips and letting the condensation drip into the valley between her breasts, shivering at the touch of each cold droplet. She took a sip and held up a finger to stay Toula as the girl tried to retreat, dropping her head back a moment as she swallowed and the cool, sweet wine coursed down her throat.
Having grown up in a coastal city only a few miles from the edge of the Great Furnace, Shian knew that this respite was temporary at best, and if she truly wanted to resist the heat she should command the handmaiden before her to brew the afternoon tea as was custom – the hot beverage far more practical and effective at fighting the oven-hot air than this decadent chill – but the iced wine felt better…

And she had other plans for Toula just now.

Taking another sip, she let her eyes rove openly over the girl, enjoying the slight squirm her appraisal elicited. She saw Toula’s eyes dart to the whip and wondered momentarily if the girl was one who enjoyed the crack and sting of leather on flesh – and if she, herself, would enjoy providing it – the thought only making the need in her own middle grow more demanding.

“Who rides with us today?” she murmured over the rim of the goblet, letting her sly thoughts reflect themselves in her sparkling sapphire eyes and relishing the squirm repeating itself in earnest as Toula’s mind no doubt began to chase itself along paths of wondering at what her mistress intended. She flicked her head casually to the side, braids rolling and clicking, to indicate the shadows on the litter’s silken walls – shadows of her father’s guards, ‘No, HER guards’ she corrected herself – riding ahead and behind on the great beast’s back.

Toula nodded her understanding – of the question at least, if not the intention – wetting her lips in nervousness before replying. “Zalrich and Khadim in front, si’dah, Benthiz and Ghoram behind,” the girl replied, barely above a murmur, “Tathizh drives the beast, and Ishla and Reman are riding in the archers’ gondolas,” she elaborated, gesturing down and to the sides to indicate the man-sized baskets that hung from the litter on the beast’s flanks and carried a guard in each armed with a powerfully curved bow.

Shian took another sip and nodded slowly as she swallowed, considering her options for entertainment – and once again glad she had adamantly refused her father’s insistence upon sending her with an escort of eunuchs. Eunuchs! How much more boring could you get? No, these were real men – and women, though once swathed in the red and blue turbans, robes, and veils of her household guard, who could tell the difference? And though Toula was openly admired by most who saw her as she went about her daily service to her mistress, Shian knew one set of eyes watched the handmaiden’s passing with a keener desire than most.

She nodded to the billowing flap of the litter’s ‘tent’. “Summon Khadim in here,” she murmured in simple command, rolling the chilled brass rim of the goblet against her lip and wondering idly if Toula’s suddenly wide-eyed look was because the girl thought she was to be punished or suspected what was coming.

‘Which will be me, at the very least, if I have anything to say about it.’ Shian thought to herself as she tilted her head to watch Toula’s bountiful, heart-shaped ass sway provocatively as the girl knee-walked to the edge of the tent. She so wanted to touch it, run her hand over its soft curve, give it a solid slap and hear the girl gasp in stinging pleasure – but she didn’t dare. One touch and she wouldn’t be able to contain herself, and the game would be ruined. To give in might be fun, briefly – but she was bored, and had something far more enticing in mind. Besides, none of her servants were anywhere near as skilled at exciting and pleasing her as her own imagination, and this Shian knew too well.

Because she tried them all.

Shian let her mind drift again as Toula pulled the flap aside and called to one of the men outside. Her thoughts briefly turned sour as she thought of her father’s penchant for sending away or selling any servant or slave she bedded more than once, many times spoiling her fun and more than once breaking her heart. There had been that flaxen-haired Northerner carpenter, with his cropped beard, long, powerful arms as thick as her thighs, soft, deep voice, and a back so strong it drove his hips as though he could fuck until the cocks crowed. He had always looked at her with those gray-green eyes as though she was the only woman in the world, and she had loved him. Had she? She thought she had. Why didn’t she think of him more often, then?

She tore her mind away from melancholy memory and focused her attention on the present as Toula backed into the litter to allow the guard she had summoned – Khadim – to duck through the flaps into the shaded interior. He brought the hot smell of the desert and the laboring elephant with him, along with the musk of masculine sweat and the scent of weapon oil and hot leather, undercut with peppery spice and sandalwood. Shian breathed deep and felt herself shiver again as his eyes above the swathed veil protecting his face darted around the tented litter in question. She made a staying gesture, watching him relax and fold his arms patiently despite the awkward kneeling posture, and she turned her attention to Toula.

“Bring the basin and cloth,” she instructed the girl, gesturing at the corner where her toilet was kept, before focusing again on Khadim, tilting her head and letting a mischievous smile find bloom on her lips. “Remove your belt and tasset,” she commanded, relishing the way his eyes flashed wide in surprise even as his hands moved almost automatically to obey her wishes. Toula, too, was suddenly once more wide-eyed as she carefully made her way back with the wide brass bowl half-filled with scented water, a soft cloth draped over her arm as she endeavored not to spill over the course of the short journey. Shian watched the guard as he dropped away his belt and weapons, then followed it with the short, armored skirt that protected his groin and thighs – revealing the loose cotton trousers beneath with the tantalizing bulge in front. “Those, too,” she commanded with a flick of her finger, taking another sip of her chilled wine.

That command was far more difficult to accomplish, and Toula was forced to wait – the girl’s breath coming in short, anxious pants as Khadim was required to first sit, then roll in the litter’s low confines to work the garments off his legs over and past his armored greaves. Shian admired the way smooth muscle flexed and bunched under the well-tanned skin of his thighs and the paler skin of his ass, noticing that – like many men of her people – he clearly shaved nearly everything but his beard and head. When he managed an upright posture again – trousers discarded, she nodded Toula forward.

“Wash him,” she breathed, anticipation stealing the force from her voice, leaving it a husky whisper. She watched as the girl hesitated only a fraction before hitching forward and setting the basin down in front of the man’s knees, wetting the cloth and lifting it to his groin. Shian smiled wider as he gasped and shivered when the cooler cloth met his overheated pouch, causing it to tighten suddenly. He was disappointingly small, she noted, though the heavy sack of his balls belied the short, thick nub of his cock. Toula worked carefully and thoroughly, though, and Shian was pleased anew when she saw his armament begin to swell and lengthen under the girl’s gentle attentions. ‘Perhaps this would not be disappointing after all,’ she thought as she watched an impressive change take place, the guard’s cock growing by degrees from shorter than her thumb to longer than her hand.

“Enough,” she murmured after a few moments. “Finish the job with your mouth,” she elaborated, ignoring the brief, wide-eyed looks of protest that garnered from both. “But don’t finish him,” she continued, as Toula obediently set aside the basin and cloth and shuffled forward. Sitting on her heels, the girl bent forward and lifted the hardening shaft, enclosing it in her soft lips and beginning to work with both mouth and hand, her cheeks hollowing and relaxing as she applied surprising skill to the task. Shian watched Khadim’s head fall back and heard a groan escape unbidden from behind his veil – a sound so uncontrolled and primal that it fairly sang to the heat in her own groin. She let herself slip a hand under the soft silk that swathed and hid her crotch – now sodden with her excitement – fingers delving between the folds of her cunt in slow, tickling caresses. Her eyes roved from Toula’s head bobbing at Khadim’s groin down over the girl’s back to her ass, barely hidden beneath the sheer cotton, rocking with the effort and made perfectly heart-shaped by her posture. Shian’s hand drifted up, fingers splaying on her belly and gliding over her sweat-slick skin to steal beneath the silk barely covering her breast, squeezing for a moment before plucking at the hardening center, pinching lightly and making herself gasp, then diving back down to the inviting wetness of her crotch once more.

“Enough,” she commanded again, more breathless than before. “Take off your shift and let him see you,” she added as Toula rocked back on her heels and wiped her mouth, shooting her mistress a look that was equal parts fear and excitement. The handmaiden nodded obediently nonetheless, and began working the clasps at the neck and waist of her garment, even as the guard lowered his head and reached for the litter’s center post for support, breath quick and ragged. Shian’s attention was torn between Toula’s dress dropping away and the ready shaft of his cock, straight and proud and still glistening from the serving girl’s mouth.

She lifted her eyes to catch his as she commanded, “Enjoy her with your eyes, then turn her around and fuck her… with everything you’ve got.” His eyes jumped wide again, though Shian suspected that after Toula’s masterful sucking, he hardly needed the added instruction. The handmaiden, too, seemed far more eager to participate now, dropping her dress to the side and catching her heels in her hands, sliding her knees apart as she arched her back and displayed her beautiful body for Khadim’s hungry eyes. Shian’s own eyes widened slightly as it seemed, if anything, that Khadim’s cock grew a fraction more as his gaze raked over Toula from eager eyes to panting lips to heaving breasts to moistening cunt barely peeking from its nest of soft, dark curls.
He glanced at Shian again, his eyes questioning as though making sure of his instruction, and at his mistress’s nod he reached out – taking Toula by the shoulders and guiding her to turn, his obvious desire burning in his eyes. The girl was all too eager to comply, and soon was on all fours, knees splayed and back arched to present her cunt to his cock. Shian’s own fingers plunged into her wetness as he grasped the handmaiden’s hip with one hand and used the other to position himself, sliding easily forward and in with a thrust of his hips – eliciting a gasping groan from the girl as her eyes lidded and she pushed back to take him all the way. True to his instructions, he didn’t hesitate, moving his hips in a building rhythm and gripping her hips with both hands, his wide eyes on her ass at it rocked back and slapped against his thighs. Each mounting thrust brought a sound from Toula’s lovely lips, the force and pitch of it rising as her hands began to grasp and twist in the pillows and rugs in front of her. Shian’s own breath was coming faster as she expertly massaged her pleasure bud and cunt, her bracelets beginning to jingle as her own pace increased in time with theirs. The hot liquid smell of sex began to fill the tent, and behind her the sounds and smell stirred the other handmaidens awake. She could only imagine their wide-eyed and open-mouthed expressions, though she refused to take her eyes from the spectacle made before her to confirm.

She was so close.

“Slap her ass,” she gasped, “Make her come,” she commanded, eyes darting between Toula’s panting expression and Khadim’s squeezed-shut eyes, his own expression of pleasure and lust tantalizingly hidden behind his veil, his breath coming in grunts and hisses from his efforts. Obediently, he loosed one hand from the handmaiden’s hip and laid it across the meatiest part of her ass with a satisfying sound, leaving a glaring white print that rapidly turned red under the girl’s delicious skin-tone. Shian jumped slightly at the sound, and felt herself tighten on the cusp at the gasping moan that burst from Toula. She saw the girl’s eyes roll up and her back begin to tremble and buck and knew the handmaiden was coming, and that was enough to send herself over the edge, her knees clamping shut of their own accord, trapping her hand against her cunt as she rocked with the sensation shattering through her. The sudden groan and hiss from Khadim as Toula’s hips bucked and shook and he joined them only extended Shian’s peak, drawing it out as she rocked and writhed, trying to keep her eyes open to watch them, but mostly failing as the orgasm turned her brain to liquid heat and her knees to water.

“Well done,” she gusted before drawing in a long, shuddering breath, and both serving girl and guard murmured “Yes, si’dah,” clearly thinking the praise was for them as they – somewhat awkwardly – disengaged and began to put themselves back together – limbs quivering and hands shaking. In a small way it was, though Shian had been more congratulating herself than them – but they didn’t need to know that.

* * *

If you’d like to read more, find ‘Sands of Change’ on Amazon here – Amazon Link

Or consider supporting my Patreon here – Sirren’s Patreon

I sure hope you liked it – feel free to comment below. 🙂

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Messages and Themes

“I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which ‘Escape’ is now so often used. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?”  – J.R.R. Tolkien

I follow a lot of writers on social media, read the words of many more in blogs and actual print, and even watch the videos of even more on YouTube. The idea is to educate myself and model the success of others. I am no trail-blazer – none of us are – the trail has been trekked before us by a thousand struggling feet. It is wide and clear though still long and arduous and fraught with dangers. For as many that have traversed its length, there are just as many that have straggled to a stop at the wayside – their bleached skeletons a testament to all the various ways we might fail.

One thing I hear repeated over and over is the idea of a ‘message’ to our writing – it must have a theme and a purpose.

It has to MEAN something.

I disagree – strongly, vehemently, and with a fair share of invective and hurled cupcakes. Writing can mean something, of course – that is undeniable. But it is my belief that for the writer to set out with the intention to deliver a profound message is unbearably arrogant and egotistical. To read such works is like cracking the spine on an overlong and ham-fisted sermon. I generally fall asleep within the first few chapters – or get so angry at the bald-faced propaganda disguised as fiction that I dent the wall across the room with that self-same spine.

There is nothing wrong with writing to entertain, and as fiction writers I believe that should be out highest, shining goal. To provide entertainment and escape. Let the meaning fend for itself in the imagination of the reader. After all – they’re going to do it anyway. I quoted Tolkien above in part because his works have been dissected for ‘meaning’ so many times it’s a wonder they haven’t fallen apart into meekly shivering filets of themselves before now. The number of articles, reviews, opinion pieces and hit-pieces written about Tolkien’s work would drown even the most ardent of readers – and yet the wonder, majesty, and pure joy of reading Tolkien endures.

Why?

I believe it is because he was never trying to sell us something – not even a message, theme, or ideology. Oh, they’re there to be found – lurking like the Arkenstone deep in the Smaug’s hoard of his works – but they were never the purpose of his writing. Like so many of the old great authors I adore, Tolkien wrote a STORY – not a message. He wrote to inspire and entertain, to offer escape and enjoyment, and he never had the hubris to think he was writing something important. He wrote what he wanted, and infused it with what he felt and believed, and left it to his readers to decide what to do with that.

If we do that, then the messages and themes will take care of themselves, will be honest, and not leave the reader feeling preached at or clubbed over the head. This is my mission – may the gods help me.

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The Library In My Mind

They say that to write well, one must read – and this is true.

However, I have found that it is also true that one must look. This may actually be more important than simply reading what others have written.

One must be constantly observing and recording mentally a vast plethora of things – pictures, locations, expressions, conversations, actions and reactions. These can come from books, movies, television shows, blogs, comic books, documentaries, the list goes on… I credit three fourths of my education to research I have done in the years since I left school – research that continues to this day.

To feed and supplement the ridiculously vast demand for knowledge and familiarity that writing requires, I consume media at an alarming rate – drinking in imagery and digesting nuance with far greater frequency than any physical nourishment that I consume. The things I have learned about in the course of pursuing writing or game creation are as varied and diverse as anyone could possibly imagine – from cooking to blacksmithing, from perfume formulation to Brazilian Ju-jitsu, from ancient Roman monetary systems to the pond life of Costa Rica.

The library in my mind is vast, and it always hungers…