Is Twenity an Adventure or a Role Playing Game (RPG)?
One of the most important things we were trying to achieve with the concept of Twenity, was to make a real-life Role Playing Game based on your online activity. Something that would be able to portray a person on Twitter as a charachter of some sort, together with its race, class, and the world this character lives in. This character would gradually evolve, becoming stronger and gaining artifacts on its path.
RPG?
This is still our vision. But we were cautions about going all-in with the RPG part. Role Playing Game is a strong word, which also suggest different fantasy scenes, dragons, princesses and advanced character definition. Since quite a few of our players are probably gamers, this expectation could leave them dissapointed and would overpromise in a way. That's why we have decided to use »adventure« instead of »RPG« and work hard on polishing the service in such a way that perhaps someday it will be worth calling a real-life RPG.
RPG!
But that doesn't mean we haven't managed to successfully implement a few Role Playing Game elements. On Twenity, you start off as a rookie (level 1), but as you play, you unlock other levels, and 3 people are already in the highest, 5th level. You receive prizes which are both your artifacts and your attributes; badges, which you are awarded for various reasons. You can determine the world you play in, which is currently defined by your Twitter timezone. You can choose your race in the form of a user type (currently Person, Brand, Public Figure, Media). And you can put yourself in two different industries, which are analog to RPG classes.
Our goal is to go even further in this direction, hopefully one day we will be able to make an even more detailed and advanced alternative profile of your online presence.
The two basic components of Twenity: the score and the adventure
We have designed Twenity to be as intuitive as possible. Based on the initial impressions of our players, we've done a pretty good job. But a few words concerning the two major elements of our service won't hurt, so everybody will be able to understand how the concept behind Twenity works. A game that helps you discover your social capital while competing with your friends.
Your Twitter profile
Based on the data it recieves from your Twitter profile, Twenity does two different things:
- The score (calculation) component: it determines your Twitter influence based on the amount of followers, mentions, retweets you have and lists you appear on, giving you a score
- The adventure (game) component: it makes an alternative portrait of your Twitter behaviour, which is displayed by your level and badges
Developing the game
Twenity started off as a plain calculation, which determines your social capital (we will be revealing how it works in some other post). At that time, it was called Twitfluence. But we knew this wasn't enough, so we've begun flirting with gamification, trying to bring gaming mechanics to the scoring. This lead us to designing a real-life adventure that contains challenges, levels and achievements (badges).
From score to adventure
The score you receive on Twenity is fully independent from the adventure. It is not influenced by your level, badges or any other things in the game, it is calculated purely on your Twitter activity (followers, tweets, lists). On the other hand, the adventure part (levels and badges) is sometimes dependent on the score. While some badges are rewarded for different Twitter achievements (number of followers, retweets, etc.), others are unlocked with Twenity activity and information (days on Twenity, the score you receive, etc.).
Even though Twenity is a game first, social influence measurement tool second, the score is its core, and the gaming part is wrapped around it. You need to have a stable foundation for advanced features, and the calculation provides just that. But it's the adventure part that makes is so much fun and different.
Twenity – when online influence measuring meets gamification
Twenity is an exciting new way to discover your social capital. Unlike similar services, that are built mostly around authority measuring, Twenity is first of all, a game. A Twitter based adventure, that allows players to go through different levels, unlock achievements (badges), solve challenges and compete with their friends.
The story so far
Twenity is currently in beta, since we are polishing the calculation and observing the performance. We are also working on new features, e.g. the compare module should be available in a few weeks. Nevertheless, there are already plenty of things for players to do, from getting a different insight into their Twitter profile, to observing what kind of impact their Twitter activities have. As you calculate yourself a few times, Twenity will guide you through different levels and award you with different badges. You will be able to see how your friends (people you follow) perform, who are the people you are catching-up on, and those that are beathing down your neck. You can become a player by clicking Analyze me.
How does Twenity work
There are two major components in Twenity. The score, which is based on information about your followers, tweets and lists, and the adventure component, which is portrayed by the level you are in and the achievements you have unlocked. Different types of Twitter users will get different badges, and those that are more influential, will get a higher score.
Define yourself
You can also use Twenity to discover and get discovered by others users similar to you, which was one of our priorities – help Twitterers to find each other. By adding yourself to various lists that determine your user type and your (two) industries, you will be more exposed for discovery. The timezone, which allows you to play in a local league, is currently taken from your Twitter profile, so you can set it there. At one point, we will probably be introducing localised versions of Twenity.
Vanity is the spice of life
There are already more than 700 players enjoying Twenity. Measuring your online social capital shouldn't be so serious and frustrating, it should be fun, and that's what we were aiming at. In a similar vibe, we've also introduced the provoking »Vanity is the spice of life« slogan, to make sure you wouldn't get over-obsessed with the score we calculate.
Twenity is a game that helps you discover your social capital while competing with your friends. This real-life adventure enables you to play without the need to actually do anything. Now go play and let us know if you like it.
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