For 2021’s Guild Spotlights, we’ll be highlighting one guild per month which runs useful or fun challenges! If you don’t know yet about challenges, they’re community events which are usually run by other users, and usually feature a group of related tasks which get added to your own task lists. Challenges can offer you a bit of extra accountability, and the feeling of not being alone on your journey… and many challenges offer Gem prizes as well!
Many of us enjoy a creative outlet, and the chance to stretch our metaphorical muscles (or maybe our real ones) and try something new! And we know of a Guild in Habitica which is the perfect place to get support, whether you’re trying to learn oil painting or trying to keep on top of your commissions…
The Artists Guild has a number of permanent challenges which you can join to spice up your art routines or give yourself a boost — challenges focused on practising, or getting a daily routine, or learning to use a new medium, for example. It’s also a good home for other art-related challenges, as well as for discussion and sharing of your creative endeavors.
If art isn’t your thing, don’t worry! We’ll be highlighting a new guild next month, and there are plenty of options in the older spotlights which you can check out!
It’s Wiki Wednesday! Once a month we highlight a helpful post from the Wiki with tips about productivity, wellness, and optimizing your use of Habitica!
One of the joys of Habitica is carefully collecting equipment, backgrounds and pets to adorn your avatar, in order to show everyone how hard you’ve been working. But have you thought about your profile, too? Here’s the Wiki Wizards’ introduction to your profile, and everything it means:
The Profile is a set of publicly available information about a player. It can be accessed by clicking on the player’s username or avatar in any chat, the Hall of Heroes, or member/participant lists in parties, guilds, and challenges. Private information (tasks, gems, email, financial details, etc.) is not displayed.
A user’s profile has three parts. The “Profile” page shows user identifiers and personal information a player chooses to share. The “Stats” page displays a player’s stats, equipment, costume, pets, and mounts they have equipped. The “Achievements” page lists badges achieved, challenges won, and quests completed.
If you need more info about your profile, you can start with the excellent page on the Wiki! Is it time to marvel at all your Achievements? Or are you on a quest to get them all?
It’s Wiki Wednesday! Once a month we highlight a helpful post from the Wiki with tips about productivity, wellness, and optimizing your use of Habitica!
In all your adventures on Habitica, your party can be great companions… but have you thought about teaming up with a wolf, a dragon, a polar bear or a friendly pumpkin? Habitica’s pets are all friendly and ready to help you achieve your tasks, but be careful — that Shade Wolf wants to eat all your chocolate!
There are so many pets, the options might seem overwhelming: don’t worry, as usual, the Wizards of the Wiki have your back.
Players can choose to hatch Pets from eggs and hatching potions. The eggs and potions, depending on their type, can be obtained from random drops when completing tasks, or from quests, and can be purchased with gems in the Market. Additionally, rare and special pets may be awarded for special events.
Pets do not require food, but most pets can be fed so that they grow into mounts. Rare and Wacky pets cannot be raised into mounts.
Welcome back to the Contributor Spotlight Series, where we interview amazing members of the Habitica community! Today we’re chatting with Blablux, a Linguist and Linguistic Scribe who has also done some contributions as a Blacksmith, helps to coordinate the French translation team, and has been a member of Habitica since 2014!
Blablux
How did you get involved with Habitica?
As far as I remember, I first discovered HabitRPG (as it was called at the time) on Lifehacker back in 2014. I signed up almost immediately because I loved the ideas behind it, but to be honest, I didn’t stick with it right away. A few months later, a friend invited me in her party, and it totally changed the way I got involved. Finding a party is the first advice I give to any newcomer, it really changes the way you use Habitica.
What’s your proudest contribution to Habitica?
I guess I made Habitica a welcoming place for french-speaking people. What I found when I first joined the main french-speaking guild is that many people struggled with the english parts of Habitica. So I joined the french translators guild, I became the leader of quite a few french-speaking-guilds, I began to create challenges in french, I encouraged other french-speaking guild-leaders and tried my best to advise french-speaking newcomers. I have to say that it’s exhausting…, but almost 6 years in, I can also say it’s really rewarding.
What are your secret superpowers?
I have grown some powerful organizing habilities, thanks to Habitica and my full-time job. At almost anytime, I can see in my head, hour by hour, what the next tasks are. And when the unexpected inevitably trample my well-crafted planning, I can rearrange everything whitout even thinking about it.
I also happen to have otherworldly capacity to NOT otherthink the tasks on my lists. I just begin working on the tasks without any “what if… ?“, dealing with problems as they happen (but then I sometimes miss things along the way).
What are your secret weaknesses?
When I’m really invested in a task, I tend to lose track of the time. It’s not unusual for me to work on something, and then realizing that I should have had lunch two hours ago (that is when replanning really fast comes in handy).
I also have a bad habit of NOT wanting to stop until a task is finished, or to “do one more before I stop“. I almost lost a finger to it at the beginning of this year, when I wanted to rapidly cut one last piece on the table saw… Well, sometimes I learn things the hard way.
What are your favorite Habitican pets/mounts?
Pet wolves ! This has something to do with me playing a tabletop game in my youth, where I was leading the Space Wolves. Although I stopped playing this game years ago, I still have a thing for its lore, and it translated in me favoring the wolves above all, anytime I have the opportunity to do it. As simple as it is, my favorite pet wolf is the base pet wolf. Its colors strike me as just right. But I like that there is always one wolf that goes well along with most of the equipment I wear.
What are some things you’re tracking in Habitica?
At the end of each year, I take a time to reflect on what I have accomplished, and what I want to do the next year. I choose areas where I want to improve, and these become my yearly goals. These generally revolve around six concept :
improving my social skills,
building my knowledge,
improving my crafts skills,
improving my environnemental impact,
improving the ecosystem around me,
working on my creativity.
Then I create real-life objectives based on these, and translate it into habitica habits, dailies and to-dos. And aside from a few tweaks and some challenges-related tasks, I tend to stick with it for the whole year.
What do you like to do in your free time?
My friends tend to say that I’m exhausting because I do way too much things. I’m a maker, so I build a ton of things, and I recently got an interest for electronics. I’m about to teach vector-graphics at my local makerspace. I’m a gardener, and grow many fruits and vegetables at home. I love to bike around, and I recently became a hiker. I read a lot of books, enough that I struggle to find space to crank them in my house. I also like to dip my toes in many, many crafts. Sometimes I paint, sometimes I do some cross-stitching, … at this moment I’m learning about paracord bracelets (useful when hiking). As said, I’m exhausting…
What are your top Habitica tips and tricks?
How you write your task is important, people ! I usually give my own example to newcomer to explain it. Long ago, I struggled to keep my indoor plants watered. So I made a daily worded “Water the plants” that repeated itself every three days. But not all plants needed water that often, and depending on the season, they may need it even less. Unless I was willing to change the repeat cycle on a regular basis, that wouldn’t have worked. So I changed the text to “The plants have been watered enough”, but that wasn’t good either, because it was about me watering the plants, and sometimes there was just no need to. I then rewrote it to “The plants don’t need anymore water”, and that hit the sweet spot for me. Your tasks have to carry the sense and the importance that you put in them, and spending some time to find the right wording is some time spent right.
Where do you like to hang out in Habitica?
Without any surprise, you will find me on most french-speaking guilds, mostly the main hub, guiding newcomers and providing some fun ideas to the community, and the french translators guild, trying to guide the translation efforts (our wiki really need some love right now…).
It’s Wiki Wednesday! Once a month we highlight a helpful post from the Wiki with tips about productivity, wellness, and optimizing your use of Habitica!
A lot of people join Habitica because they’re interested in games, and the idea of making your own life into a Roleplaying Game sounds amazing. Others come for the cute art and the to-do lists, and some of the gameified aspects of the site are a little baffling. As always, our Wiki editors have your backs, and this month we’re highlighting their page on the Class System.
The Class System is a gameplay feature that is unlocked at level 10. Until that point, every player is a Warrior by default, although several features of the Warrior class are not available until level 10 and above.
There are four classes, each having their own specific stat bonuses, special skills, and equipment that increase their effectiveness.
Whether you’re a gaming newbie who needs a basic primer, or someone just looking to figure out the quirks of Habitica’s system, you can check out the full page here!
Our Use Case Spotlights post series is designed to highlight different user stories and ideas for how to get the most out of Habitica. Whether you’re looking for new Dailies or trying to set up a system to manage your burgeoning pile of unread books or unfinished projects, you can browse through our Use Case Spotlights to get ideas from experienced users eager to share their setup. This month, we’ve asked the Use Case Spotlights Guild to come up with some ideas around studying for exams!
shanaqui got the conversation started with their exam preparation plans:
My course material has very clear sections and headings, so I used to-dos with checklists to gradually check off each one once I was confident about it. I also had a daily for getting in my studying time.
The other thing, though, is that I “paused” most of my other dailies. I didn’t want to do this by using the Tavern/ability to pause all my dailies. Instead, I edited the start date of those dailies to resume the week after my exam was done. That means they automatically became active again for me once everything was over, without changing anything else like when they repeat. Really handy!
OptimumKitten talks about how she uses to-dos in a bit more detail:
I create a to-do titled with the name of the course I’m doing, and then I create sub-tasks names after each lesson. In between each lesson, I create a sub-task with bold or capital letters named after the module and it will say something like “Module 1 Finished!”. It’s nice being able to tick of each lesson no matter how tiny because then I feel like I’m still making progress, even if I can’t do more than a few minutes one day.
dicedweller has some ideas about turning up the motivation power of to-dos:
i used to have a few huuuuuge to-do’s like @OptimumKitten with countless subtasks, one to-do per course. but recently i found (or at least i hope i’ll find :P) that breaking things down into multiple to-do’s that i can tick off faster is actually more rewarding for me personally. so now i have multiple to-do’s titled (for example) “photography course”, but each of those only has 2 or 3 sub-tasks, so i get to check them off faster!
i also have a “uni” tag which i use for all my university-related tasks, and i always like to keep that activated while i’m studying! that way i won’t be distracted by all the other tasks floating around 😉 i also have a “study for x time” daily, and a “studied for an hour” habit, which i use to keep track of my weekly goals.
What about you folks? Do you use Habitica to manage your studying, whether it’s formal study or just your personal interests? What would be your number one tip?
Don’t forget to check the Use Case Spotlight Guild to have your say! If you respond to the next prompt, your post could be included in next month’s spotlight, as well. We’d love to hear from you, so keep an eye out for the announcement!
It’s Wiki Wednesday! Once a month we highlight a helpful post from the Wiki with tips about productivity, wellness, and optimizing your use of Habitica!
Have you ever wondered how to get more shiny badges for your Profile? Or what exactly that new badge you got represents? This month, we’re highlighting the Wiki page on Achievements, which covers what they are, how to get to them, and what all those coveted badges look like!
A player’s Achievements and the corresponding badges are found in the Achievements tab, located in the player’s profile.
All obtainable achievements that have yet to be earned by a user are represented by a grey question mark icon.
The existing achievements and their corresponding badges are listed in the following sections, sorted by placement on the user Achievements tab. Some achievements, such as Kickstarter-related achievements, are no longer available. Some achievements can stack, while others can only be obtained once
Piqued your curiosity? Itching for your next big win? Find out more about Achievements on the Wiki!
Welcome back to the Contributor Spotlight Series, where we interview amazing members of the Habitica community! Today we’re chatting with Nakonana, one of our newest Moderators. Nakonana has been helping out for quite a while, helping users and contributing to the German and Russian translations of the site, but she’s recently joined the moderation team as well! Now seems like a great time for you to be able to get to know her…
How did you get involved with Habitica?
I saw a TV report on the concept of gamification and I just randomly searched for apps with that concept. I found Habitica. It reminded me of my friend who likes games and was working on something that sounded like it would be easier to handle with a task-manager, so I pointed him towards Habitica. He installed it and reported back that it helped him, so I thought, I might as well try it myself. And yes, so far this set up works better than anything else I’ve tried before! 🙂
What’s your proudest contribution to Habitica?
I’ve looked into different ways of contributing and my focus seems to switch from one to another. Things I get a lot of positive feedback for are the ADHDers Guild’s wiki page and the challenges I run. Contributions that made me learn new things and move out of my comfort zone were learning how to edit wikis and how to create user styles. I’ve never done these before and am happy for having tried them because they turned out to be fun!
What are your secret superpowers?
I’m extremely patient and it’s usually hard to anger me. (Sometimes it bugs people that I don’t respond to provocations the way they expect it haha)
What are your secret weaknesses?
Some people say I’m sociable, but I’m actually socially awkward :>
What are your favorite Habitican pets/mounts?
Most of the time you see me taking one of my wolf pets for a walk. IRL I’m scared of wolves because I’m from an area where wolves live and I’ve heard some horror stories x_x But at some point all party members had wolves equipped by pure chance and we kind of joked that it’s our party pet now. (It isn’t, we still equip other pets but I mostly keep it up with the wolves xD)
What are some things you’re tracking in Habitica?
Chores, self-care tasks (e.g., reading, but also things like skin care), eating veggies every day, car maintenance tasks (checking water levels etc.), paying bills/renewing contracts, learning new things, gardening, working on projects… I mostly use Dailies because they are like reminders to me and I keep forgetting about Habits since they are never due. To Do’s are for appointments and projects.
What do you like to do in your free time?
Reading manga, jogging, baking cakes and lately wiki editing. (I blame Habitica for the last one xD)
What are your top Habitica tips and tricks?
It’s all customizable to fit one’s needs and changes in life! If something doesn’t work (i.e. a task is being neglected), it’s time to change the set up for it (move it to Habits/Dailies/To Do’s, change it’s difficulty, change how long you work on it each day etc.). There’s no “right” or “wrong” way to set up your tasks. Yes, you can add mundane things like brushing your teeth to your list! 🙂 Using third-party tools for Habitica, like extensions, styles etc., offers even more possibilities to manage one’s tasks in a way that it works for oneself.
It’s Wiki Wednesday! Once a month we highlight a helpful post from the Wiki with tips about productivity, wellness, and optimizing your use of Habitica!
Habitica’s social side is part of what makes the app so useful and enjoyable for many people: there are places to hang out, places to get advice, and places to get accountability. But have you ever looked at the list of Guilds and felt a bit overwhelmed? Not to worry — the Wiki has a Guilds Guide, a non-exhaustive guide to the different corners of Habitica, where you can jump to sections that contain Guilds of interest to you.
Let’s allow the Wizards of the Wiki to start us off by explaining what’s included in the Guide:
There are more than 870 open guilds in Habitica. This Guild Guide to the larger public guilds of Habitica is a work in progress. While it gives a good overview over the great and medium-sized guilds grouped by topic, it can never be complete since new guilds will be created, grow, shrink, and be abandoned and deleted every day.
If you’re interested, check out the full article on the Wiki! Don’t forget that the Wiki is always a great source for all kinds of info about Habitica, so many questions can be answered there!
Our Use Case Spotlights post series is designed to highlight different user stories, tricks and tips that can help you as you set up your own tasks, renew your setup to give yourself new challenges, or just get more motivated to keep going! For this spotlight, we asked people about how they use Habitica when it comes to contributing to Habitica. Those who contribute to Habitica are very special to us because they help make everything possible, and contribute to the friendliness and warmth of our community — so let’s see what they had to say!
First of all, SuperSaraA had some thoughts about her journey as a Socialite and an Artisan:
I use Habitica to help me track contribution projects I work on. As a socialite, I joined the Super Socialite challenge the first few months because it gave me directions on what I could do to help and also a handy reminder task to go visit the Tavern or Ask A Question guild. Over time I just made my own habit to visit those guilds. As an artisan contributor I more often use To- do tasks to mark when my pixel art project needs to be completed or refreshed by so that I can remind myself to stay accountable. I also have a few to-does that I use as notes of how long I spend doing the pixel art to help a fellow contributor who is doing research on about how long people spend creating their pixel art projects. While this is unofficial helping the other contributor, I personally lump it into a similar mental task category. While I do not have a title for creating challenges, I aspire to someday. To help me achieve this goal, I regularly create challenges in various guilds (or the public list) and share them with users. I often add links to them in my profile so users on the apps can easily find them. I mainly use To-do tasks to organize these. Often I make one with ideas of challenges. Then when I make a challenge, I make a to-do with the challenge name (and what guild it is in if applicable) and when I need to close it. I also set the due date a bout a full day after the date I list on the challenge description so users world wide will not be prevented from having the most time to do the tasks. This really helps most for me when I add tags to these tasks so I can filter them and get a good idea of what tasks I need to do when to begin or end challenges I am running.
PixelStorm also had tips about a whole range of ways to contribute:
As an Artisan When I first started contributing, I used my task page to keep track of my claims. Mostly this would be in the form of a to-do with a checklist. Each round of drafts was recorded in the checklist, and changes I needed to make on the next draft was recorded in the description. However, as I moved up the tiers, more and more of my tracking moved to my Artisan trello board. I also used to have a daily for reading and responding to messages in PiP, but as I now do this without a prompt the daily was no longer needed. I suppose checking PiP became second nature to me.
As a Challenger I usually create a to-do at the end of the month to help me with the challenge rollovers in Pixel Power. This will normally include a checklist with the new themes, reminders to post a message in Pixel Power and The Bulletin Board, as well as a reminder to update Pixel Power’s keep page with the new themes and challenge winners. If the guild has a collaboration challenge with an approaching deadline, I will have a to-do with the final date so I can post a reminder in Pixel Power about a week before it closes.
…But PixelStorm also gave a great tip about using Habitica’s guilds to enhance the experience:
I’d say that in terms of contributing, I mostly use Habitica for the guilds. I’ve joined several contributor guilds, even if I don’t have any plans to earn the title. You can find me in Pixels in Progress and Guild Leaders and Challenge Creators most of the time, but I also check in to Wizards of the Wiki every so often to see if the Scribes need any help with navigating the main pixel art trello when updating the art credits. I’m also in the Aspiring Legends Guild, where I like to help aspiring contributors find a title that suits their skills and interests. I also keep an eye on the quest trello board – if I see a new quest open for submissions, I will post a link to it in the Aspiring Legends guild for any aspiring Storytellers there.
Meanwhile, QuartzFox has some warm words for the way the community can act as a support, including for contributors:
That’s what the community side of Habitica is really about: supporting each other. Learning from each other. Giving advice and hugs and shoulders when needed, and cheering each other on, and sometimes helping us to face up to ourselves, to our darker sides, and heal those places inside ourselves that maybe we couldn’t do on our own — but here, where we can just be ourselves, we can bare our weaknesses safely because we know, unequivocally, that we’re all fighting the same fight, and maybe we’re fighting on our own — but that’s not the same as fighting alone. ❤
That’s all for now, but you can check out the full posts in the Use Case Spotlights Guild. Don’t forget that you can be featured in our next Use Case Spotlight by joining the guild and posting your thoughts when the next Use Case Spotlight theme is announced, too.
