Build Gamified Websites with PHP and jQuery

Detrick DeBurr

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781782168119
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Programming Games
• Index: Computer Science

In Detail

Gamification involves the process of leveraging the features of real games into real life. A gamified website has the potential to increase user engagement, ROI, and learning. This book will help you build gamified websites with PHP and jQuery by making you understand the gamification design process to implement game mechanics in practical applications.

Gamified websites are very popular amongst Internet users. The gamification of a web content draws users into action to empower them and help them develop new skills. Games engage user attention into the task and each task accomplished will mean the development and enhancement of new skills. This book will help you to apply the essence of games into real word applications such as business and education.

Build Gamified Websites with PHP and jQuery aims at empowering and educating the users with an educational gamified website. The book walks through the process of developing a gamified website. Through the course of the book, you will learn gamification development process. The book emphasizes on the application of game mechanics to motivate the user. You will then use the Fogg behaviour model to influence the user behaviour. By the end of the book, you will see yourself building more engaging yet simple websites based on rational principles.

Approach

This book is a standard tutorial, which walks you through the gamification development process, to help you incorporate game elements in an eLearning environment.

Who this book is for

This book is for jQuery and PHP developers who wish to gamify their educational websites.

Build Gamified Websites with PHP and jQuery

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Table of Contents

Build Gamified Websites with PHP and jQuery

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more

Why Subscribe?

Free Access for Packt account holders

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Gamifying the Educational Process

What exactly is gamification?

Schools using gamification

History of gamification in education

Monopoly Academy

Khan Academy

Spongelab

Youtopia

Quest2Learn

World of Classcraft

Gamification in universities

The future of gamification in education

Gamification in the classroom

Having fun at school

Summary

2. The Framework

Business objectives

Target behaviors

Players

Activity loops

Progression loops

Fun

Tools

Account creation screen

Summary

3. Objectives and Target Behavior

Fogg behavioral model

Motivation

Ability

Triggers

Triggers in our application

Increasing our players' ability

Motivating our players

Identify internal and external triggers

Intended action

Variable reward

Our development environment

Installing a LAMP stack

Troubleshooting the WAMP server setup

Summary

4. The Players

Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology

Killers

Leaderboards

Rewards for defending and critiquing posts

Achievers

Badges

Leveling/progress

Challenges

Socializers

Explorers

Our players

Creating the MySQL database

Creating our tables

Summary

5. Activity

Pyramid of game elements

Gamification toolbox – better than PBLs

The VuPoint application

jQuery

Vupoint.js

Index.html

The Home page

Account Creation Page

Validate the form

Writing a new account to the database

The Login Page

Main page view

Summary

6. The Fun

Intrinsic versus extrinsic behavior

What makes "fun" fun?

The player's experience

Competency

Autonomy

Relatedness

The Scoring module

AjaxHandler.php

The Achievement module

The Leaderboard module

Players currently online

Summary

7. The Wrap Up

Just the beginning

Third party plugins

Gigya plugins

Badgeville

More resources

Gamification

PHP

MySQL

jQuery

A. Tables

Engagement loops (Table A – 1)

Player type: Killer

Player type: Achiever

Player type: Socializer

Player type: Explorer

Gamification design matrix (Table A – 2)

Index

Build Gamified Websites with PHP and jQuery

Copyright © 2013 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: September 2013

Production Reference: 1160913

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

35 Livery Street

Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78216-811-9

www.packtpub.com

Cover Image by Suresh Mogre (<[email protected]>)

Credits

Author

Detrick DeBurr

Reviewers

P. Alex (Pruteanu Alexandru)

Robert Wąs

Acquisition Editor

Pramila Balan

Commissioning Editor

Shreerang Deshpande

Technical Editors

Anita Nayak

Vrinda Nitesh Bhosale

Copy Editors

Sayanee Mukherjee

Aditya Nair

Adithi Shetty

Project Coordinator

Amigya Khurana

Proofreader

Joel Johnson

Indexer

Monica Ajmera Mehta

Graphics

Ronak Dhruv

Production Coordinator

Shantanu Zagade

Cover Work

Shantanu Zagade

About the Author

Detrick DeBurr currently serves as a co-founder of CUPID On The Go! Prior to this, he was Founder/CEO of Digital Rhythm Inc., an information technology services provider based in Dallas, Texas, USA. Detrick has served in various software development roles through his career. In 2005, Black Engineer Magazine named him a Modern Day Technology Leader.

He is a graduate of Darden University's Minority Equity Boot camp, a program that educates minority business owners to access the private equity capital markets. In 2001, Mr DeBurr received Stanford University's Digital Visions Fellowship for his efforts with the Digital Literacy Alliance in Ghana, West Africa.

Mr. DeBurr is the author of Deal Us In! How Black America Can Play and Win in the Digital Economy, Anji Publishing, 2001.

He has served his community as Chairman of the Planning and Zoning Commission in Cedar Hill, Texas. He has also served on the Board of St. Philips School and Community Center and chaired the Dallas Blueprint for Leadership Program, a program that prepares minorities to serve non-profit boards and committees. He is an active member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc..

I would like to thank my wife Sonya DeBurr for her patience during this book project. I would also like to thank Terry, Joshua, and Aisha (my children) for the inspiration and incentive to write this book.

About the Reviewers

P. Alex is a young webmaster who loves the Web. His full name is Pruteanu Alexandru and he was born in Moldavia. He is currently living in Italy, where he studies Web and Multimedia Technologies at the University o...

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• Build Gamified Websites with PHP and jQuery