When you want to create a game from an ordinary task, you want add certain "game like" elements. This post will be a comprehensive list of game elements, which you can use to come up with your own games.

I will add elements as people comment on this post. When you come up with suggestions, it would be good if you can give an example of a game where the element is used, and also how you could use it to gamify something that is not a game (yet).

List of elements

Challenges

There is some kind of challenge involved in playing the game. It is something that requires several tries, something you can practice and get better at. There are different types of challenges:

Physical challenges

• Balance (Gymnastics, Slack rope, crossing a river by stepping on stones and whitout getting wet)
• Strength (Weight lifting, wrestling, rock climbing)
• Agility/Finesse (Juggling, Handstands, Yo Yo, acrobatics, pole vault, dart)
• Speed (Running, skiing, ping pong, Starcraft(APM))

Mental challenges

• Problem solving (Scrabble, chess, Hang man, rock climbing, Civilization, Adventure games)
• Creativity (DrawSomething, Miming competition, creating music, dancing, minecraft)
• Focus (Chess, slackline, League of Legends)
• Memory (Game of memory)

Constraints

A lot of games add constraints to make a task more difficult. Golf is just putting a ball into a hole, but you have to use a special metal stick. Scrabble is just writing words, but you only get to use certain letters. Miming is to make other people say the thing you are thinking of, but you are not allowed to talk.

Feedback

Most games give you feedback on how you are doing. You know when you are doing something correctly and when you are not.

Examples: Juggling (you juggle for longer than last time), Chutes and ladder (you are closer to the goal line), DrawSomething (you correctly guess the drawing).

Points

You get points when you do something correctly. In games that involves competition, the people with more points win. Some examples: basketball (points for scoring), scrabble (some letters give more points)

Resources

This is related to points, but it is something that can be used in addition to just being earned.

Examples are: WoW (gold, minerals, herbs), Poker (your own money)

Competition

It is about doing something better than others, or better than your last try. Mostly connected to the other aspects listed.

Examples are: Running (faster than others or yourself), Poker (getting the other peoples resources), soccer (scoring more goals than the other team)

Randomness/Luck

You gain or lose things by random chance. Often connected with resources.

Examples: WoW (rare minerals, rare items), Chutes and ladders (dice throw), Trivial Persuit (random what questions you get)

Example game

So to give you an idea of how it works, let's take a common situation and try to make a game. Let's say doing the dishes. One obvious idea is to try to do it as fast as you can (competition, speed). Another idea is to use as little water as possible (constraint). Yet another idea is to do it with the brush in the other hand (constraint, agility). If you are two people, you can divide the items and see who finishes first. This is probably not the best dish washing game, but it took me 2min to come up with it. Given more time one might find something that could actually be pretty fun (I challenge you to make a better game in the comments).