Virtual Office Resource

Gamification is a concept in the software industry that turns ordinary business solutions – think workforce management or e-learning – into video-game style interactions that encourages users to engage in a video game-like manner, earning points or badges, or ascending levels. Increasingly, it’s being used in software development. The goal is to motivate developers to adopt or improve the best programming practices while working on software projects, and help the developers feel more engaged with their jobs and their colleagues.

“Common factors that improve software developers’ motivations are a sense of belonging, supportive relationships, rewards and incentives, professional recognition, challenging work, feedback, and autonomy,” wrote Alberto Mora of the HCI Games Groupin an article for Medium. “Gamification, or the use of game design elements in non­game contexts, is an effective way to improve software developers’ motivations to produce quality work.”

Cloud-communications solutions provider Twilio (News - Alert) is taking the lesson to heart. The San Francisco-based company recently launched TwilioQuest 3, an update of its original TwilioQuest, with a mission of training developers to create cloud communications solutions.The next incarnation of TwilioQuest is a top-down role-playing game inspired by the classics of the 16-bit era, playable on desktop PCs.

“In TwilioQuest, you will assume the role of an Operator in the top-secret TwilioQuest program,” said the company in a statement. “This elite unit of programmers and explorers has assembled to take on a shadowy organization known as the Legacy Systems, whose goal is complete control of the virtual universe we know as The Cloud.”

Developers use Twilio in their web and mobile apps to send SMS or WhatsApp messages, make phone calls, send emails, embed video or text chat, send and receive faxes and more. Operators in the TwilioQuest programwill receive intensive training in a variety of technical skills.TwilioQuestis available on Windows, Mac, and Linux desktop PCs, and is downloadable through PC game distribution platforms.